After a horrible week of errors and scandals for NBC News, the network capped off the week with flaming liberal bias. Friday’s NBC Nightly News ended with anchor Lester Holt offering a pathetic puff piece on a new documentary about liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom Holt deemed is someone that “many may not appreciate” concerning her “lasting influence” and “commitment to equality and justice.”
Of course, there were zero labels (such as left-wing, liberal, or progressive) applied to Ginsburg in his two-minute-and-four-second report.
“When we come back here tonight, I'll have a new look at the woman known as Notorious RBG, the Supreme Court justice with rock star status,” Holt proclaimed in a tease with the accompanying chyron “Star Justice.”
Holt came back from break with this gooey setup, calling her a “pop culture icon”:
Finally tonight, while we know the U.S. Supreme Court has a lasting influence on this country's direction, many may not appreciate how one justice in particular has had a lasting influence on American culture and beyond. And now to mark the 25th anniversary of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's nomination to the Court, a new documentary explores the woman sometimes known as RBJ. She may be an octogenarian but Ruth Bader Ginsburg is nothing short of a pop culture icon.
After the first of many clips from Ginsburg, he boasted of how “[t]here are mugs, t-shirts, Halloween costumes for tiny jurists and SNL sketches” about Justice Ginsburg and how “daughter Jane and granddaughter Clara say there's a lot more to the woman known as the Notorious RBG.”
Interspersed with clips of Ginsburg, family members, and friends, Holt explained that the documentary now in theaters “follows her life-long fight for women's rights....and her life beyond the law” such as “the love story between Ginsburg and her gregarious husband Marty to her famously grueling workouts.”
Holt allowed Ginsburg’s granddaughter to have the final word, but he wrapped up his tribute without any ideological labeling (such as how she’s firmly pro-abortion of unborn children): “[A]t 85, Ginsburg isn't slowing down and her commitment to equality and justice remain as strong as ever.”
Good week, NBC. You definitely showed America what the state of journalism is like in 2018.
To see the relevant transcript from May 4's NBC Nightly News, click “expand.”
NBC Nightly News
May 4, 2018
7:23 p.m. Eastern [TEASE][ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Coming Up; Star Justice]
LESTER HOLT: When we come back here tonight, I'll have a new look at the woman known as Notorious RBG, the Supreme Court justice with rock star status.
(....)
7:26 p.m. Eastern
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Notorious RBG]
HOLT: Finally tonight, while we know the U.S. Supreme Court has a lasting influence on this country's direction, many may not appreciate how one justice in particular has had a lasting influence on American culture and beyond. And now to mark the 25th anniversary of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's nomination to the Court, a new documentary explores the woman sometimes known as RBJ. She may be an octogenarian but Ruth Bader Ginsburg is nothing short of a pop culture icon.
JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: I am nearly 84 years old and everyone wants to take a picture with me. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
HOLT: There are mugs, t-shirts, Halloween costumes for tiny jurists and SNL sketches.
SNL’s JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG (played by Kate McKinnon): It’s a Gins-burn!
HOLT: But her daughter Jane and granddaughter Clara say there's a lot more to the woman known as the Notorious RBG.
CLARA SPERA: She is very quick and funny and doesn't miss a beat.
JANE GINSBURG: She's also incredibly sentimental and she cries at movies and at the opera.
HOLT: A new documentary called RBG follows her life-long fight for women's rights —
GINSBURG: I did see myself as kind of a kindergarten teacher in those days because the judges didn't think sex discrimination existed.
HOLT: — and her life beyond the law —
SPERA: She doesn't know how to turn on the TV. In some ways, she's just like your grandmother.
HOLT: — from the love story between Ginsburg and her gregarious husband Marty to her famously grueling workouts —
HARRYETTE HELSEL: I've heard she does 20 pushups three times a week or something. I mean, we can't even get off the floor. We can't even get down to the floor.
HOLT: — at 85, Ginsburg isn't slowing down and her commitment to equality and justice remain as strong as ever.
SPERA: When she graduated at the very top of her class from Columbia Law School, she couldn't get a job whereas I have graduated and almost every opportunity was open to me and I know that she is one of the many pioneers that allowed that transition to happen.
