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
Last Friday, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9 opened in 1,719 theaters across the country – the biggest opening for any of his films – but only made $3.1 million. Although it had the highest opening for a documentary in 2018, it was a letdown compared to the famous weekend in ...read more
After a tumultuous week that included calls for boycotts, advertisers dropping out, and a leaked recording of a pre-interview phone call, Megan Kelly’s 17-minute special on Alex Jones finally aired. Kelly was more than critical during her questioning of the radio host and ...read more
Tough luck for anyone who was hoping to feel satisfied after watching Megyn Kelly’s much anticipated interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The roughly 10 minute discussion was featured on the debut episode of NBC’s new program, Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly. While she ...read more
This is really more of an aside to a couple of previous pieces that ran down NBC's woes in terms of its roll-out of the shiny new toy it's obsessing over, Megyn Kelly. But it's information that, while not surprising in the least, deserves to be seen far and wide so people can ...read more
Well, I hate to say I told you so, but, this is NBC we're talking about. A couple of days ago I posted a piece in our members' section detailing how NBC was already screwing up the roll-out of its shiny new toy, Megyn Kelly. Since the Peacock never met a talent transition that it ...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
If you're anywhere near Facebook today you've likely seen the clip of Jimmy Fallon and Paul Rudd performing, almost note for note and shot for shot, a recreation of the video for Styx's "Too Much Time on My Hands." Like his equally vapid recreation of Extreme's "More Than Words" ...read more
In a venomous, virtually indecipherable word salad posted on Facebook, Sarah Palin went after NBC's John Harwood, "leftists lapdogs," and even the GOP establishment for an array of perceived slights against her and the real American conservatives. Bizarrely, much of the rant ...read more
(Photo: Seth Wenig/AP) The word "exclusive" is one of those things that probably once meant something in television news. Now, though, all it really means is that a TV network or station is doing a very specific thing at a very specific point in time in a very specific way that ...read more
In the space of two weeks since launching his presidential campaign, Donal Trump has offended 1.8 billion people with offensive, racist language, lost a huge business deal with Spanish language broadcaster Univision, and now lost his business relationship with NBC, after the ...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
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
Photo by Wasim Ahmad/Stony Brook University School of Journalism In what is quickly becoming the worst month for media ever, the New York Time's David Carr has passed away at the age of 58. Tragically, the enigmatic journalist collapsed in the newsroom last night, leaving ...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
Stop me if you've heard this one before, but somebody just got fired from NBC News in a fashion spectacular enough to make news. In addition to that, two prominent co-hosts on the Today show were reportedly fired while not actually being fired, which led NBC to have to make a ...read more
That, Mr. Gregory, is the sound of inevitability. By now you've probably heard that the axe has finally, officially fallen on David Gregory's pitiful tenure as host of NBC's Meet the Press. A friend of mine at NBC in Miami said the e-mail from corporate went out this morning, ...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
The big news around the Beltway on Monday is that NBC is pulling the plug on David Gregory as host of Meet the Press, and will likely replace him with the equally hacktacular Chuck Todd, who hosts The Daily Rundown on MSNBC. That's according to Mike Allen's Playbook, so if ...read more
One of the people closest to me in my life gave me something a couple of years ago that makes me laugh every time I come across it in my kitchen. It's a standard white coffee mug that features a simple design he probably put together at Cafe Press: the profile of a shark, with ...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
Just days after abruptly pulling him out, NBC has announced that it's sending correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin back to Gaza. The network removed Mohyeldin after an Israeli strike that killed four young Palestinian boys on a beach in Gaza on Wednesday, replacing him with Richard ...read more
Media censorship in America is a little tricky to explain to outsiders, particularly given the U.S. has some of the strongest free speech laws in the world. The press has unusual freedom to report on what it wants, yet when it comes to certain issues, the U.S. media looks like ...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
Chuck Todd is a bit of a joke. We know this. He's the guy who once said that it isn't his job to call out partisan lies and set the record straight for the audience. He's the guy who just a year before that literally broke down on the air over the public being misled by lies and ...read more
Happy Friday. Here's what's going on in the world -- or at least on the internet -- that you can use to pass the time until you get to start your weekend. 1. All the talent that NBC has unceremoniously dumped over the years that's actually been, you know, talented and somehow ...read more
If you were curious what happened to the guy who spent six years crapping all over CNN and the guy who spent $200,000 on an office bathroom at NBC so he could crap in private, well, wonder no more. As it turns out, they're teaming up. Former CNN president Jon Klein and former ...read more
When talking about the previous episode, Donald Glover/Troy’s farewell, I highlighted how big a hole he was going to leave and that Dan Harmon’s best bet at replacing him was to utilize the Duncan/Chang/Hickey combo that he now has at his disposal. Well it looks like Dan ...read more
Thank God the Olympics are over and NBC is back to showing true greatness like Community. To get you back in the groove, we're going throw a recap a day at you to get you excited for Thursday's new episode. Excelsior! ** “The human mind has a tendency to re-channel separation ...read more
Yesterday, Seth Meyers announced that his former SNL co-star Fred Armisen would be leading his house band, The 8G Band, once he takes over “Late Night” on February 24th. https://twitter.com/sethmeyers/statuses/432980405684166656 Many people were a bit surprised, as the ...read more
This season's winner of reality show The Biggest Loser accepted her $250,000 prize grinning happily and gushing that she felt amazing despite gasps from the live audience and shocked reactions from two of the show's trainers when they saw how undeniably gaunt and desiccated the ...read more
*For recaps from previous episodes, click here and here and here. **Before I begin, I just want to acknowledge that this episode was written by Alex Rubens and directed by Tristram Shapeero. I will be referring to all writing/directing staff as Dan Harmon though because it's ...read more
If you've somehow missed my recaps for the first two episodes of this season of Community (or are wondering why I'm even doing this), you can find them here and here. Excelsior! Before reading this review, please click play for the accompanying soundtrack: ...read more
If you want to read my rationalization for why I’m doing a marathon of Community episode recaps, click here. If you want to know way more than you ever should about the wonderful new season of Community, keep reading. Episode 5, Season 2: “Introduction to Teaching” There’s a ...read more
You know what a politically-focused site like The Daily Banter needs more than anything? Episode recaps and analysis about an esoterically brilliant show that is already on its penultimate or final season! But seriously, if I’ve eked out even a bit of your trust, believe me ...read more
NBC aired an NRA-sponsored show in which the host kills an elephant by shooting it in the face. This week's episode of 'Under Wild Skies,' the host Tony Makris - a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association - is shown hunting an elephant in Botswana. Makris fires on the ...read more
I know I wrote as recently as yesterday that humor is in the eye of the beholder and it's futile to try to convince a person that something is or isn't funny, but I think there's at least one universal truth in comedy: people who strongly self-identify as conservative aren't ...read more
"What I always love is people say, 'Well, it's you folks' fault in the media.' No, it's the President of the United States' fault for not selling it." -- Chuck Todd on Morning Joe today, claiming that it's not the media's responsibility to educate the public on the realities ...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
It looks like Jimmy Fallon will be the next challenger to step up and try to knock Jay Leno off his throne on The Tonight Show. If you believe Bill Carter over at The New York Times, and there's no reason not to given Carter's unparalleledexpertise on the subject, NBC is ...read more
Jesus, how desperate is NBC to save the Today show? Desperate enough to let Matt Lauer publicly scold them for screwing up the firing of Ann Curry. It was just four months ago that then-Today executive producer Jim Bell essentially pleaded with the public not to blame Lauer ...read more
Early last month, during an NBC Sports football telecast, legendary sportcaster Bob Costas reacted to the murder-suicide perpetrated by Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher by delivering a brief yet incisive editorial warning of the dangers of the American gun culture. ...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
First there was the news that may have come as a surprise to most reasonable people, but which honestly was all-but-assured to those who understand how the corporate world works: the hiring of Jeff Zucker as the new head of CNN Worldwide. Sure, pretty much everyone with a pair ...read more
