Michelle Kosinski

NBC on Friday offered a light-hearted defense of Barack Obama's vacation, justifying it by pointing out how hard it is for world leaders to take trips.

On Today, NBC's Savannah Guthrie implored, "Well, is there ever a good time for a world leader to take a vacation? President Obama is receiving some criticism for his summer getaway to Martha's Vineyard and he's not the only one."

While reporting on the sexual assault case against International Monetary Fund Chairman Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Tuesday's Today, NBC correspondent Jeff Rossen noted how the would-be Socialist Party candidate for the French presidency had "worried his political opponent, current French President Nicolas Sarkozy, would try to frame him with a fake rape..."

Rossen further added that Strauss-Kahn once told a French newspaper that the rape victim would be "promised 500,000 or a million euros to invent this story" by Sarkozy. Following Rossen's report, correspondent Michelle Kosinski highlighted French outrage over Strauss-Kahn's arrest: "I would say that the reaction ranges from disbelief to outright disgust. To see their VIP paraded before cameras, the socialists are calling it 'inhumane'....they're saying that this looks like a humiliating public exhibition like something from ancient times."
                        
The headline on screen during the segment read: "French Conspiracy Theories; Was Banker Set Up as Part of Political Plot?"

As our readers know, to celebrate the 5th anniversary of NewsBusters, we have started a weekly Five for Five feature to countdown the blog's top twenty five posts. Last week we began with the top five media flubs caught by NewsBusters and on Friday we continue with the top five posts embarrassing the media.

As part of the anniversary celebration, we have picked out a couple posts from each of the five categories and asked the authors to reflect back on writing them up. They share their thoughts on how they caught the particular media moment and describe the impact their post had.

We begin with a look back at two of the top media flubs: "Up a Creek: Accusing Bush of Video Stunt, 'Today' Gets Caught in Stunt of Its Own" by Mark Finkelstein and "Dog Urinates on Katie Couric Ice Scultpture" by Scott Whitlock. 

Editor's Note: For the list of NewsBusters T-shirt contest winners, skip to the end of this post.

As we approach our 5th anniversary at NewsBusters, our celebration would not be complete without a recap of our best posts. It was a tough call, but we came up with the top 25, broken down evenly into five categories of five each.

We call it our Five-for-Five.

Each Friday through August 13 we'll publish a Five-for-Five list.We've saved the very best for last: On Monday, August 16, we'll publish the Top Five Outrageous Outbursts.

But we start today with a much lighter note. The first category for Five-for-Five is The Top Five Media Flubs Caught by NewsBusters. (Also check out a short video-cast with NewsBusters bloggers talking about how they caught the flubs.)

In no particular order we remember...:

• ...how CNN's Kyra Phillips was the original Gossip Girl ["Oops! CNN Airs Anchor's Girl Talk Over Bush Speech" August 29, 2006]

There's economic trouble in the land with people unable to afford proper health care or heat for their homes ABC and NBC contended on Wednesday night. And where did the network journalists travel to find the heart-rending anecdotes of people in pain thanks to the awful Bush economy? Some Republican area with harsh conservative politicians who have slashed government funding to the poor? No, to Boston, a veritable liberal nirvana of big government for decades, the home of John Kerry, with a Democratic Mayor in a state with an Obama ally, Deval Patrick, as Governor.

ABC's Gigi Stone looked at how “many Americans” supposedly now “find themselves...forced to choose between short-term survival and long-term health.” She asserted: “Doctors here in Boston say they're seeing an increasing number of patients who cannot afford the most basic preventive health measures.” So much for the wonders of the Bay State's mandatory health insurance law.

NBC anchor Brian Williams acknowledged “record levels of government help available” for heating bills, yet “communities around this country are worried people will simply not have enough money to keep warm in the cold winter during this cold economy.” Michelle Kosinski showcased a Normandy veteran in Boston who “sometimes” can't afford to eat before she turned to John Drew of Action for Boston Community Development who fretted people “do not have enough income,” so there are “infants who are at risk” and “as a national government, as a national priority, we've got to do better.”

Last summer NBC told viewers bottled water was bad for the environment because of its packaging and transportation demands.

This time, NBC's April 9 "Today" warned viewers some reusable water bottles are bad for society because they contain a dangerous substance.

"[M]any of those sturdy, reusable plastic bottles contain a chemical, bisphenol-A, that many scientists are worried about," NBC correspondent Michelle Kosinski said.

What did "Today base these concerns on? They based them on a study with lab rats given doses of biphenol-A "thousands" of times higher than what exists in the bottles.

My ears perked up as soon as I heard that Michelle Kosinski would be reporting from the Amazon on this morning's Today. Might we be treated to another shot of the comely correspondent in a canoe?

Alas, no.

But that doesn't mean the segment was without its diversions. It told the tale of a Brazilian environmentalist in Manaus, on the edge of the Amazon. Ann Curry, long back from her Green Week exploits at the South Pole, introduced the story.

View video here.

(h/t Dan Gainor)

Campaigning for the loyalty of young voters can be tricky, so holding a fundraiser in a Miami night club can't hurt (although it didn't help then-Florida gubernatorial candidate Janet Reno in 2002). But holding one in a night club that hosts "Striptease Sundays" is just asking for media scrutiny, although I doubt it will be a big row for Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

But at least MSNBC noticed the gaffe (see screencap at right) at about 10:42 in the August 26 edition of MSNBC Live.

Video (0:47): Real (1.28 MB) or Windows (1.43), plus MP3 (342 kB).

Shorter clip (0:27): Real (750 kB) or Windows (817 kB), plus MP3 (183 kB)

See Update below: Michelle back on the flooding beat!

If you're Michelle Kosinki's agent, you surely have a verboten vocabulary list. Words you don't want your ward ever to say on air. Above all, of course, "canoe." But others too. Ones like "puddle," "slosh," and certainly . . . "row."

But there was Michelle on this morning's "Today," reporting from London on Potter-mania. And you guessed it . . .

On March 24, the Today show featured a segment on the Vice President’s personal needs for hotel visits. The piece, which aired at 7:20AM EST, featured three references to Cheney’s request that all televisions be tuned to Fox News. A few days later, the Smoking Gun,  the website that broke the Cheney story, did a follow up on John Kerry’s requirements. The NBC series has yet to cover this. And if they did, they would probably not report this demand:

"Newspapers: all local plus New York Times, Washington Post"

I will always have a soft spot for NBC reporter Michelle Kosinski. After all, it was Michelle's Canoe-Gate stunt that got my NewsBusters career off to a nice start. Michelle was back on the weather beat on this morning's Today show. And once again she made a weather-related allegation that strained credulity.

As we know, in MSM-land all extreme weather events from the very hot to the very cold are somehow the result of global warming. Michelle's topic this morning was the record-breaking cold and heavy snows that have swept the nation's mid-section. She reported from a very cold and snowy Springfield, Illinois [snow in Springfield on the first full day of spring - haha, we get it]. But somehow, Michelle managed to parlay this unusually cold and wintry weather into the threat of . . . increased hurricane activity, which of course is the result of unusually warm weather in the tropics.

The New York Observer updates last week's Michelle Kosinski Today show nightmare, caught reporting in a canoe in ankle-deep waters.

"It’s kind of painful,” she said, “because you want to explain yourself. The most important point for me to get across is: Yeah, it looked really stupid, but there was never any attempt to make it look like it was worse of a storm than it really was.” The article ends with her one lingering concern: Her one lingering concern: “That it might have looked to some people like we were trying to put something over on viewers,” she said. “That would just be idiotic.”

Writer Rebecca Dana explains the gritty details were all about production values:

In a deliciously ironic twist of fate, shortly before airing a segment aimed at embarrassing the Bush administration by suggesting that it had staged a video conversation between the president and soldiers in Iraq, the Today show was caught staging . . . a video stunt.

In the Bush/Iraq segment, Today screened footage indicating that prior to engaging in a video conversation with President Bush, soldiers on the ground in Iraq were given tips by a Department of Defense official.

But the only advice that the official was shown as giving was a suggestion to one solider to "take a little breath" before speaking to the president so he would actually be speaking to him. It was also stated that some of the soldiers practiced their comments so as to appear as articulate as possible. But there was no indication, or even allegation, that the soldiers were coached as to the substance of their comments or in any way instructed what to say.

Video excerpt: Real or Windows Media