Yesterday, NBC News ran a story that threatened to send fervent election-watchers into a downward spiral. Using data provided by TargetSmart, reporter Adam Edelman and the NBC News Data Analytics Lab said that Republicans were outpacing Democrats in early voting, which is now ...read more
Unless you religiously watch the Sunday news shows, then like me, you probably just read about them online. Highlights are clipped and headline making statements are written up by most media organizations. But every now and then, you hear about something down the line that ...read more
Stop me if you've heard this one before, but NBC is about to royally fuck up an on-air talent transition, screwing over marquee names, angering its audience, and instantly tainting the new face it paid a lot of money to see on its programming.... To continue reading this article, ...read more
So by now it's known by pretty much everyone everywhere that Megyn Kelly will be leaving Fox News and heading to, by any measure, greener pastures at NBC. Kelly is a bonafide star, certainly, so there's no doubt that her departure is bad news for Fox -- despite the network's ...read more
by Matt Casper In the light of a highly critical and distorted segment covering the release of the FBI's Hillary Clinton investigation notes on Sunday's Meet the Press, NBC News and Chuck Todd must answer questions about glaring inaccuracies and potential anti-Clinton bias in ...read more
Keith Olbermann is a nightmare to deal with. He's reportedly been a toxic presence in almost every one of the shops in which he's worked, his arrogance, tendency toward self-indulgence and general neuroses always making like a living hell for both his superiors and his peers. ...read more
Where there's one lie, there are often many. These are words to if not live by then at least keep in mind when trust is of paramount concern. When Brian Williams got busted spinning a fanciful fable out of his experience covering the war in Iraq in 2003, it was practically a ...read more
Another day, another lengthy article dissecting the best soap opera on television, which just happens to be the day-to-day existence of NBC News. In the new issue of Vanity Fair, Bryan Burrough picks at the meat left behind by Gabriel Sherman, who wrote a similar exposé in New ...read more
There were a lot of lessons from very smart people that I tucked away and carried with me throughout my career as a TV news producer, but it was the first one that might have proven to be the most important. I was young and it was my first shot at producing, on the biggest show ...read more
Somehow we all must've missed the recent statement from NBCUniversal expressing "complete faith" in NBCUni Newsgroup President Pat Fili-Krushel because it's looking more and more like her head is going to roll. The irony would be delicious if what got us to this point weren't so ...read more
It's a testament to how quickly the news cycle revolves these days that talking about Brian Williams already feels hopelessly dated. His downfall is now old news, even though he technically still works for NBC and we can expect new revelations about his situation over the next ...read more
The slow-motion train wreck that has been the Brian Williams RPG attack scandal (RPGate?) came to a head Tuesday night when NBC News announced that Williams will be suspended for six months without pay, at which point he will presumably return (hopefully, my dog Emma will also ...read more
(UPDATE BELOW) The whole Brian Williams story is getting, as they say, curiouser and curiouser. Yesterday I mentioned a CNN report which seemed to corroborate at least part of Williams's account about what happened to him in Iraq in 2003, namely that the helicopter he was ...read more
Brian Williams is in a world of shit right now. That's blunt, but it's the truth. He spent the past 12 years telling a story about being in a helicopter what was hit by RPG fire over Iraq with the only problem being that the story doesn't seem to have been true. What's more, now ...read more
Hypocritical Today show update at bottom A quick warning right off the bat: If you're currently sipping on some kind of drink, swallow it, because in a moment you're going to read something that will make you laugh out loud. Just before Christmas, Amy Adams was scheduled to ...read more
Photo: James Veysey Here's the least surprising item of the day: not championing the great many successes of their party's White House and in fact distancing themselves from it has ended with the Democrats being crushed at the polls. Here's the second least surprising item of ...read more
Apparently a few people in the mediaverse are shocked, shocked I tell you that NBC is unceremoniously giving soon-to-be-ex-soulmate David Gregory the silent treatment these days. It seems like the network just isn't bothering to call him back and is otherwise turning a cold ...read more
Hopefully you're somewhere near a fainting couch because you're going to need it for news this shocking: Glenn Greenwald was completely wrong about why NBC abruptly took Egyptian-American correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin out of the field in Gaza last week. You'll remember ...read more
I spent several years working for NBC News, first within the network's Television Stations Division and ultimately for MSNBC in the aftermath of 9/11. The manager who initially brought me in under the tent in Miami was a guy named Don Browne, who was at one time the executive VP ...read more
Last night, while watching Brian Williams' interview with Ed Snowden, I actually agreed with Glenn Greenwald about something. Back in 2012, Greenwald referred to Williams as "NBC News’ top hagiographer," using "his reverent, soothing, self-important baritone" to deliver ...read more
Whenever the debate begins anew over David Gregory's value as a political journalist, it's hard not to think of this: Yes, that's "Stretch" Gregory white-guy dancing next to a rapping Karl Rove at the Radio and Television Correspondents' dinner in 2007. If there were any ...read more
I'll make this quick. Don't hold your breath waiting for David Gregory to be handed his walking papers. Obviously, Gregory's had a pretty rough year as the host of NBC's venerable Sunday morning political talker Meet the Press. He was roundly criticized for questioning ...read more
It probably seems like I write quite a bit about NBC and its problems. In fact, I do, and there's a reason for this. I spent a good portion of my career in television news working for NBC, at both the national and local level, and that time with the network always represented ...read more
I was going to save this for tomorrow's column and actually may still have something to say about it after the segment in question airs in the morning. But in the desperate hope that somebody at NBC News might listen and put the brakes on what could very well be the biggest ...read more
I'll make this quick because it's Friday and I have no desire to work late tonight. MSNBC's heading faster and faster down a dangerous road and it needs to put the brakes on. Now. For a couple of years now the network has been fielding accusations of being the liberal ...read more
The quote of the day comes to us from NBC chief Bob Greenblatt, who said at this past weekend's Television Critics Association conference: “We talked him out of running for president. Wasn’t that good enough?” The "he" Greenblatt is talking about is Donald Trump -- pompous ...read more
By Chez Pazienza: For some time now, I've been making the argument that claims of a liberal media bias -- at least insofar as what's actually produced by most American news outlets -- amount to a bunch of nonsense. The reason for this is simple: The right has created such a ...read more
By Chez Pazienza: 1978's Force Ten from Navarone wasn't really a great movie; it certainly suffered from being a sequel to a much better movie, 1961's The Guns of Navarone, starring Gregory Peck and David Niven. Yet still it holds a bit of a place in my heart simply because I ...read more
By Chez Pazienza: When it comes to the not-so-subtle art of spinning tantalizing link-bait out of thin air nobody's better -- and by better I mean more shameless -- than the Huffington Post. God bless them, they really know how to get you to point-and-click against all better ...read more
By Bob Cesca: When we do the list of names that occupy the rogues gallery of political villains, Mark Halperin's name doesn't often make the cut. It's chiefly because Halperin doesn't shout or speechify at length like many cable news talking heads. Make no mistake, however. He ...read more
By Chez Pazienza: Like just about anybody who's spent a good portion of his or her career in the TV news industry, I watched Aaron Sorkin's new show, The Newsroom, on HBO a couple of nights ago. I did this because, like anybody who's spent a good portion of his or her career ...read more
Rampant consumerism is one thing, but this is ridiculous. From MSNBC: Family and friends were stunned by the loss of a West Virginia man who died while shopping on Black Friday as fellow bargain hunters reportedly walked around— and even over— the man’s body. Family members ...read more
