NBC couldn't get enough of her heroic alpine antics, even as the network which has never missed a Star Spangled medal ceremony to dwell on, seemed less interested in covering events "next door" in Ukraine or, closer to home, by fully exploring the buy out of Time Warner Cable by its own parent company, Comcast, that it also couldn't be more adoring towards.
The FAIR Blog feature a snapshot of their "coverage" on the Morning Joe Show on MSNBC: " The February 13 broadcast of Morning Joe featured both sides--meaning the CEO of Comcast and the CEO of Time Warner Cable.
The news segment was more PR than journalism, with hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough offering up softballs. Scarborough actually prefaced one question by saying, "It'll sound like a softball question"; his question to Comcast's Brian Roberts was, '"Comcast seems to be doing everything right over the past four or five years." Brzezinski closed the segment by congratulating the CEOs."
Scarborough later explained: "We get our paychecks from Comcast. Obviously we're not sort of cool and detached from this news."
To my surprise, after weeks of airing hot rumor after rumor about what was being pictured as an inevitable apocalypse on the Russian Riviera, especially terrorist threats in Sochi and every complaint by any journalist whose toilets didn't flush in a luxury hotel, NBC had something nice to say in prime time on Friday night about the Russian hosts of the games.
Suddenly, it was about face time with the management of the games and the security praised for a job well done with plaudits for the hospitality of the Russkies and the good vibes all around. Suddenly, the description of a gulag softened into allusions to a borsht belt.
Perennial NBC Olympic host Bob Costas was downright complimentary, but this thaw in the new cold war between the US and Russia didn't last more than a few minutes.
It was a set up for the thundering "on the other hand' political monologue to come blasting Putin, no doubt in the spirit of "balance," so hypocritically applied in network journalism.
It was so over the top that AP was startled into writing about it, calling it a "sharp if jarring" commentary that made the ultimate Olympic host the ultimate bad guy, bringing back memories of demonizing axis of evil comments from Reagan to Bush.
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