Bad News: Tamron's Info Sources are Us Weekly and NYT

MSNBC's Tamron Hall [file photo] is a big "Us Weekly" fan. Even more disturbing: she believes that guilty pleasure is expiated by her reliance on the New York Times for her news.

Hall has been taking Mika Brzezinksi's place on this week's "Morning Joe." This morning's show opened with Joe Scarborough decrying the disparately lenient judicial treatment doled out to Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan. They have received slaps on the wrist, doing virtually no jail time for their drug-fueled escapades, whereas Paris Hilton spent over 20 days in the hoosegow.

When Joe asserted that Paris has been walking the straight and narrow since exiting the Big House, Tamron corrected the record.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: I will say this about Paris Hilton. Supposedly, from people who have talked to her since she's gotten out of jail, she's started going to charities, she's stopped the whole party-girl routine . . .

Tamron brought him up short.

TAMRON HALL: That's not true. I get Us Weekly every Thursday and I look through it . . .

Panelist Willie Geist could be heard chuckling in the background at Tamron's admission. Thus put on the defensive, Hall sought to redeem herself . . .

HALL: as much as I look through the New York Times, they're side-by-side in my house, Us Weekly and the New York Times. And there are pictures of her at Hugh Hefner's house, dancing on a pole.

This is my second item on Hall, and I actually feel a bit bad singling her out this way. I don't sense she's intentionally promoting a liberal agenda in the same way that some of her more hard-edged colleagues do. She seems a nice person from a traditional background in Texas, and if I heard her correctly yesterday, her father was a long-time career military man.

It's just disappointing, though, to learn that she obviously believes that the New York Times is the respectable place to look for news. Isn't Tamron aware that all a person needs to know can be learned by reading NewsBusters? ;-)

Aside: One final note to Tamron. When chatting with Joe, it's preferable to avoid mention of women dancing on poles.