Supplemental: NBC News loves the children of fame!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2014

Chelsea’s circle of friends: Early this morning, we noticed two quick items in the news:

Maureen Dowd is lounging somewhere en vacance. Bill Clinton is in Australia, speaking at an AIDS conference.

One of the two is said to be “wantonly acquisitive,” quite possibly out of touch. Can you guess which one it is?

Whatever! As the press corps has blown up its latest jihad about the Clintons, we’ve remembered what happened in 2000, after two years of this sort of thing.

The liberal world has been very lazy about such matters in the past. If we might quote from Barney Fife, we think liberals ought to learn to nip these things in the bud.

With that in mind, we’ll offer one more reaction to part of the recent jihad about Chelsea Clinton. Dowd expressed the complaint in her recent overblown column, the one where she didn’t luv Bill:
DOWD (7/13/14): If [Chelsea Clinton] really wants to be altruistic, let her contribute the money to some independent charity not designed to burnish the Clinton name as her mother ramps up to return to the White House and as she herself drops a handkerchief about getting into politics.

Or let her speak for free. After all, she is in effect going to candidate school. No need to get paid for it, too.

There was disgust over Politico's revelation that before she switched to a month-to-month contract, Chelsea was getting wildly overpaid at $600,000 annually—or over $25,000 per minute on air—for a nepotistic job as a soft-focus correspondent for NBC News.
According to the Clinton Foundation, most of Chelsea Clinton’s speeches actually are for free. Dowd forgot to include that.

Dowd seems to have advice for others concerning every part of their lives. Today, we’ll focus on the part of that passage dealing with NBC News.

“There was disgust over Politico's revelation?” Dowd forgets to say where this disgust occurred.

That said, Chelsea Clinton has been making decent pocket change if Politico’s report was accurate. We don’t know why NBC would have paid her that much, or why they would have hired her at all.

But then, NBC News seems to enjoy hiring children of fame. Let’s take a look at the record.

For what it’s worth, Clinton is one of three presidential offspring employed by NBC News. Jenna Bush is still a special correspondent for NBC's Today Show and a contributor to NBC Nightly News. Ron Reagan is still an MSNBC contributor.

Children of candidates get hired too! Meghan McCain was an MSNBC contributor for a while. Since last summer, Abby Huntsman has been the token not-that-conservative conservative on The Cycle, MSNBC’s 3 PM daily program.

A further guess:

If Ronan Farrow had been Ronan Sinatra, NBC would have hired him even sooner. In the mornings, Mika Brzezinski is carrying a well-known last name too.

Also, Willie Geist Jr.! And what about Luke Russert? Remember Maria Shriver?

We don’t know why NBC News does so much famous-name hiring. Some of the current people seem perfectly competent. Some of them, possibly not.

Nor do we know how much money these other children of fame get paid. Do you?

But ever since Chairman Welch established that comical Nantucket Irish Catholic Circle, NBC News has been involved in various species of odd hiring.

By established rules of the guild, you’re not supposed to notice or discuss such things. Except when a narrative starts blowing up, almost nobody does.

25 comments:

  1. Chelsea got her job because she's Bubba daughter. Hillary got her jobs because she's married to Bubba.

    Is that wrong to say?

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    1. Yes, because , at least, in Hillary's case, it's inaccurate. She has a long history in public service and advocacy going back to before meeting "Bubba". After her marriage her public career took a back seat to his. Bus she helped him with politics and policy. Many in Arkansas believe he never would have been re-elected governor in 1982 without her brains and hard work. So, yes, it's wrong, and, dare I say it, sexist.

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    2. Not to mention, she was the family's main breadwinner during the Arkansas years. Very wrong to say she wouldn't be where she is without him.

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    3. Put this in the wrong spot - second try:

      So i guess when a member of HC's 2008 campaign (i.e., G. Ferraro) said this:

      “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is."

      You dared to say it was wrong and it was racist.

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  2. So i guess when a member of HC's 2008 campaign (i.e., G. Ferraro) said this:

    “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is."

    You dared to say it was wrong and it was racist.

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    1. It was wrong for her to say that, but I don't think GF was a racist. I also don't think this is analogous to saying an accomplished woman is where she is because of her husband.

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    2. No more than to say Bobby Kennedy was where he was when he was shot was because of his brother.

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    3. 3:02, Obama was accomplished. So why is it not analogous? To me, it's the same.

      5:42, i'd say he was where he was more because of his father than brother, but either way yeah.

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    4. It would be analogous if there wasn't so much magical thinking surrounding Obama in 2007 and2008. I think that's what Ferraro was trying to say. Her mistake was bringing in race and gender without evidence. Maybe you don't think there was magical thinking among Obama supporters. I do. Some have come to that conclusion only after viewing his presidency. The original statement about Clinton was sexist. I provided evidence why I thought so. You're free to disagree, but I still think so.

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    5. But that's what successful candidates do -- they inspire that "magical thinking."

      FDR did it in 1932. Ike did it in 1952. Kennedy did it in 1960. Clinton did it in 1992. Obama did it in 2008.

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    6. If all successful candidates inspire magical thinking, they inspire us to think like children. It's a child development term and not a good thing in adults. It refers to a child's blind faith in his ability to effortlessly control his environment and what occurs in it.

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    7. There are some candidates who find success by appealing to our worst instincts.

      But you are right. Let us not be inspired by those candidates calling out the best in us. That is so "child development."

      Instead, let's read a blog about all those damned kids with all those damned Ivy League degrees making all that damned money.

      Far more mature.

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    8. Anyone looking for some magical thinking? It is that Hillary Clinton in 2000 would even have been elected dogcatcher in NY state if she had not been married to Bill Clinton.

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  3. Look at pictures of Frank Sinatra, Woody Allen, and Ronan Farrow. He really is Ronan Sinatra.

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    1. If he was Sachel Paige II he would have spent decades at the local affiliate befor being brought up to the network.

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    2. When he was a little kid, his name was Satchel Farrow.

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    3. He was named Satchel after Mr. Paige.

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    4. His show is tanking. In a few years, like his brother, he will admit the charges against Woody Allen are false and trumped up by his half insane Mother.

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    5. Which half is sane?

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    6. Well, She was great in "Rosemary's Baby", and fantastic in "Broadway Danny Rose."

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    7. Thanks Greg. Great performances for sure, but for contemproary work I would rate it slightly below Ali Mc Graw for comedy (Goodbye Columbus) and drama (Love Story where she played the Tipper Gore character).

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  4. I would take issue with Abby being the child of a famous person. Abby is significantly better known these days than her father.

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  5. If Hillary wasn't married to Bill, she would not be in this position.

    If Chelsea wasn't Bill's daughter she would not be in this position.

    Right? Of course.

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    1. You may be right, but are you suggesting that Hillary and Chelsea are not qualified for their respective jobs? I think the issue is that some (not all) celebrity hires are not qualified. The point Bob is making appears to be that the media tends to hire celebrity children, whether they are qualified or not. Good business. Bad journalism.

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    2. Is your comment about what Bob's point "appears to be" necessitated because Bob's explanation was fuzzy or because it was murky?

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