You are no Tim Russert, Mr Brokaw
by Why Not, Tue Sep 30, 2008 at 08:00:34 AM EDT
As garnerered from the New York Times article, It is Mr. Brokaw we have to thank for the sacking of Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews from the anchor desk at MSNBC.
"In an interview here after Sunday's broadcast, Mr. Brokaw said that over the summer he had "advocated" within the executive suite of NBC News to modify the anchor duties of the MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on election night and on nights when there were presidential debates. Their expressions of strong political opinions from the MSNBC anchor desk has run counter to the more traditional role Mr. Brokaw played on "NBC Nightly News" for more than two decades. NBC said earlier this month that the two hosts would mostly relinquish their anchor duties to Mr. Gregory, while being present as analysts."
The interesting thing about this comment is the sheer hypocracy of the situation. Brokaw speaks as if he holds no biases in his presentation to the public. We have seen him on Meet the Press beefing up McCain:
Tim Russert would be turning in his grave if he knew that this sort of advocacy was being pushed during his Meet The Press, taking the credentials of said program and giving an unfair lean to the right.
And now we hear that not only has Brokaw used his senior status at the network to eliminate the anchor positions for Matthews and Olbermann, but he is also advocating for the McCain campaign at NBC. Again from NYT:
"Mr. Brokaw said he had also conducted some shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between NBC and the McCain campaign. His mission, he said, was to assure the candidate's aides that -- despite some negative on-air commentary by Mr. Olbermann in particular -- Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News. Mr. Brokaw said he had been told by a senior McCain aide, whom he did not name, that the campaign had been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of the moderators of the three presidential debates -- until his name was invoked."
So Brokaw is not only advocating for McCain in the organization, but now is the ONLY reason the McCain campaign would consider allowing an NBC anchor at the debate.
NYT:
"One of the things I was told by this person was that they were so irritated, they said, `If it's an NBC moderator, for any of these debates, we won't go,' " Mr. Brokaw said. "My name came up, and they said, `Oh, hell, we have to do it, because it's going to be Brokaw.' "
Well since Brokaw is such a great advocate inside the NBC organization for the McCain campaign, he obviously cannot be objective and ask the hard even handed questions that will be needed for the people to discern which candidate will be the best for the country.
Until Mr. Brokaw is able to answer questions of fairness, he should NOT be the moderator of ANY debate (and this goes double for Fox news and other questionable anchors).
So lets call upon NBC to suspend Brokaw from anchor duties until such a time as he can be shown to be fair to both candidates and not and advocate for one.
viewerservices@msnbc.com
MTP@NBC.com
You can also mail a letter to:
NBC News
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Tags: debates, nbc, Tim Russert, tom brokaw (all tags)









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