Many NBC News blog visitors posted Monday that NBC and particularly anchor Brian Williams should address a New York Times article that states the network was using a military analyst that used the position primarily to promote military contractors.
Williams made no mention of the article in his post, referring only to the traffic for Black Friday and the overall economy.
The Times article stated retired Army general Barry R. McCaffrey, who worked for NBC News as a military analyst, had ties to military contractors and, whether intentionally or otherwise, would often advise the governement to buy more military equipment, particularly from companies that employed him.
"I'd like to hear an explanation from you rather than the NBC [public relations] department speaking to this weekend's revelations in the New York Times that Barry McAffrey has been promoting his private defense industry interests in the guise of "expert commentary" on NBC News," wrote one. "This is corruption at its most insidious, influence peddling masquerading as objective commentary. I would expect better from NBC News."
Of the 15 posted comments on the blog, eight asked for an explanation from Williams. Conde Nast's Portfolio magazine posted an online media blog entry titled "Why NBC News Should've Known Better." In it, Jeff Bercovici, the blog's author, states "NBC News should end its relationship with [McCaffrey] or face the loss of its credibility. NBC News president Steve Capus released a statement following the article's publication that stated "McCaffrey was a man of honor and achievement who would never let business obligations color his analysis."
Read the NBC News blog posts demanding an explanation to the Times article here.
Read Portfolio.com's Mixed Media blog reponse to the article here.
--
Online page views released, NY Times leads; second-place USA Today is 600 million behind
ProJo declines to run departing columnist's criticism of newspapers
WSJ staffers worry about their stories appearing in NY Post
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment