NBC – Nepotism Broadcasting Company

“But I wanna be on TV!!!”

Yesterday, NBC News announced that they had hired Chelsea Clinton as a full-time network news correspondent.

What qualifies her for this?

I dunno.

She is no journalist. She has no background in journalism or news.

Her last job was heading the Clinton Foundation (one need not ask how she qualified for that one). But what people do with their private foundations is one thing, the people we select (sorry, stupid me), make that ‘the people who are inflicted up on us’ to deliver the news have a bit more impact on how we see the world.

And how do we see the world at NBC?

Clearly, it is the children of famous people who are the most qualified to deliver the news and report on the world.

Lucky Chelsea, currently my nominee for Executive Vice President of the Lucky Sperm Club, joins the NBC ranks of George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna, Meghan McCain, daughter of John McCain, 22-year old Luke Russert, son of Tim Russert and Cody Gifford, son of Kathie Lee Gifford – all vastly qualified professional journalists in their own right.

What in the world qualifies these people for anything remotely resembling national network news correspondent and journalist.

OK.

Here is but a snipped… but a snippet, of David Halberstam’s journalism career up to the point where he was Chelsea Clinton’s age:

“Halberstam arrived in Vietnam in the middle of 1962, to be a full-time Vietnam specialist for The New York Times. Halberstam, like many other US journalists covering Vietnam, relied heavily for information on Pham Xuan An, who was later revealed to be a secret North Vietnamese agent. In 1963, Halberstam received a George Polk Award for his reporting at The New York Times, including his eyewitness account of the self-immolation of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Qu?ng Ð?c.[2] During the Buddhist crisis, he and Neil Sheehan debunked the claim by the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam regular forces had perpetrated the Xa Loi Pagoda raids, which the American authorities initially believed, and that instead, the Special Forces loyal to Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Nhu had done so to frame the army generals. He was also involved in a scuffle with Nhu’s secret police after they punched fellow journalist Peter Arnett while the pressmen were covering a Buddhist protest. Halberstram left Vietnam in 1964. At the age of 30, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his war reporting. He is interviewed in the 1968 documentary film on the Vietnam War entitled In the Year of the Pig.

And here is Journalist Chelsea Clinton’s bio for the same time-frame in her own gilded life:

In 2003, Clinton joined the consulting firm McKinsey & Company in New York City,[22] and went to work for Avenue Capital Group in the fall of 2006. She served as co-chairperson for a fund-raising week for the Clinton Foundation, and serves on the board of the School of American Ballet.[22] On September 22, 2011, she was elected to IAC’s board of directors.[33]
On November 14, 2011, NBC announced that it has hired Clinton as a full-time correspondent, reporting feature stories about “Making a Difference” for NBC Nightly News and Rock Center with Brian Williams. She will continue to work for the Clinton Foundation.[34]

Do you see why network news is just a hollow shell of nothing wrapped around a mere figment of a personality?

In other words, do you see why it sucks?

About the author

mrosenblum - For more than 20 years, Mr. Rosenblum has been on the cutting edge of the digital ‘videojournalist’ revolution. During this time, he has lead a drive for videoliteracy, and the complete rethinking of how television is made and controlled. His work has included: The complete transitioning of The BBC's national network (UK) to a VJ-driven model, starting in 2002. The complete conversion of The Voice of America, the United State’s Government’s broadcasting agency, (and the largest broadcaster in the world), from short wave radio to television broadcasting and webcasting using the ‘VJ” paradigm (1998-present). The construction of NYT Television, a New York Times Company, and the largest producer of non-fiction television in the US. Rosenblum was both the founder and President of NYT TV, (all based on the “VJ” paradigm – 1996-1998). The President and Founder of Video News International, a global VJ-driven newsgathering company, with more than 100 journalists around the world. (1993-1996).