Appearing on Tuesday’s Megyn Kelly Today, NBC reporter Stephanie Gosk blasted her media colleagues for making far too much of a retired English teacher who “graded” a letter sent to her from President Trump, nitpicking the document over grammar mistakes and capitalization. The journalist warned that the press was so focused on criticizing Trump that they were “not seeing the forest through the trees with this administration.”
After host Megyn Kelly mentioned the topic, Gosk declared: “We spend so much time going after a full spectrum of criticisms when it comes to the Trump White House.” She then pointed out that the actual substance of the letter dealt with a very important issue: “This is a question about teenagers being gunned down in schools. That’s what this letter was about. And we are talking about whether or not to capitalize the word ‘federal’ in a letter. It is not about that. We are missing the larger point.”
“And this went viral and everyone went insane because everyone goes insane all the time with this White House. But let’s get to the real issues and take all of that energy and pour it into stuff that matters,” Gosk admonished.
Perhaps the NBC correspondent was reacting to CNN’s dramatic overreaction to the story. Just minutes before Kelly’s 9:00 a.m. ET hour morning show began, CNN’s New Day conducted a lengthy softball interview with the teacher, Yvonne Mason, who corrected the White House letter. Co-host John Berman hailed her: “I love what you do here.” Fellow co-host Alisyn Camerota chimed in: “I like your note at the top of where you marked it up where you say, ‘Have y’all tried grammar and style check?’”
Sunday’s edition of New Day similarly hyped the corrected letter, seeming to pick up the story from the left-wing Huffington Post.
Maybe CNN should listen to Gosk and try covering substantive policy rather than such petty critiques.
Here is a transcript of Gosk’s May 29 comments:
9:09 AM ET
(...)
STEPHANIE GOSK: I also think this is an example of not seeing the forest through the trees with this administration. We spend so much time going after a full spectrum of criticisms when it comes to the Trump White House. This is a question about teenagers being gunned down in schools. That’s what this letter was about. And we are talking about whether or not to capitalize the word “federal” in a letter. It is not about that. We are missing the larger point. And this went viral and everyone went insane because everyone goes insane all the time with this White House. But let’s get to the real issues and take all of that energy and pour it into stuff that matters.
MEGYN KELLY: Good point.
JENNA BUSH HAGER: That is.
KELLY: She did a good job of making her letter go viral though.
(...)
