Standard-free journalism on parade all day on NBC's Sunday

Forgotten But Not Gone

It was another do-as-we-say, not-as-we-do day for the National Broadcast Company this past Sabbath.

Over the weekend NBC offered up their latest versions of Tim Russert's Meet the Press and the Chris Matthews Show -- the latter being political television's answer to Jerry Springer. In them we were treated to two more glittering examples of all that is wrong with the Jurassic Press.

That being the woeful lack of journalistic ethics demonstrated by those at the heights of the media mountain, and the utter shamelessness they and their colleagues exhibit upon their being outed as amoral hacks.

Johnny Dollar over at Olbermann Watch compiled a list of the orange-tinted “Countdown” host's Top Ten Lies of 2007 (h/t Conservathink).

Between doctoring quotes, misrepresenting TV ratings, obsessing over Michelle Malkin's ethnicity and crushing on Bill O'Reilly, the TV host who self-anointed himself as Edward R. Murrow's heir let loose with some tall tales.

While lie number one is my favorite (go read it), some of 2007's lying lowlights include Keith claiming Rosie O'Donnell never compared US troops to terrorists, stating Fox News' Roger Ailes is running Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign or just lying about O'Reilly and News. Here's a little sample (bold mine):

#5 - ... But our #5 entry shows Keith "Man on Fan" Olbermann at his most desperate. So eager was he to protect a possible NBC hire (Rosie O'Donnell) he doctored her words (sound familiar?) to claim she never compared US troops to terrorists.

Still smarting from his Memogate spanking, disgraced former "CBS Evening News" anchor Dan Rather is trying to reclaim journalistic glory by trumpeting the claims of a supposed Boeing whistleblower. Paul at Wizbang sees an all-too-familiar scenario:

Stop me if you're heard this one....

A has-been anchorman, trying to reclaim past [false] glory tries to destroy a person or an institution by using accusations from a dubious source back-up by documents of dubious credibility. A big blogosphere welcome back to Dan Rather.

This time his target is Boeing but his reportage skills are about the same. Even without benefit of seeing the report (it airs tonight) there are already problems with it.

What problems? Well apparently the Seattle Times has found that the would-be whistleblower, Vince Weldon, has credibility issues: