David Zurawik, a TV writer for The Baltimore Sun, slammed "pretend journalist" Chelsea Clinton on The Daily Download for her work on NBC.
"I continue to be fascinated by a network news division putting someone as outrageously unqualified as Clinton on a prime-time newsmagazine," he wrote. "I watched her again last week in a softer-than-soft piece on a weight loss program started by Pastor Rick Warren at his Saddleback Church, and I can say with absolute certainty that she has not improved one lick in the last year."
He proclaimed, "In fact, I think she is worse than when she started this job for which NBC News President Steve Capus said 'it’s as if she had been preparing her whole life.'”
For example, he found in the Warren piece, for example, the pastor said he had a goal of losing 90 pounds and had already dropped 50. “So, you’re over the 50 yard line,” she asserted.
"No, that would only be like crossing the 50 yard line if a football field was 90 yards instead of 100 yards long," he declared. "The fact that NBC left her response in suggests how bad the rest of her on-camera verbal interaction with Warren must have been. Or, maybe the producers have simply given up on making her look like she is in any way worthy of a network correspondent’s job." Perhaps they know she's just moonlighting and it doesn't matter whether or not she's any good.
Zurawik professed fascination with a Maggie Haberman puff piece in Politico breathlessly considering Chelsea's "next act" in her charmed life:
Here’s the nut graph: “Family friends and supporters says Chelsea Clinton, who has evolved from a frizzy-haired little girl in the White House to a self-assured public figure in her own right, is ready to play an increasingly larger role in the national debate and may emerge as a pre-2016 surrogate of sorts as her mom mulls her future plans.”
The piece is filled with quotes from those family friends and supporters describing Clinton as “incredibly articulate and human…charmingly personal while at the same time substantively deep.”
If true, it’s amazing how none of that manages to work its way into her on-air work for NBC with such programs as Rock Center.
Somehow, Zurawik left out former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland proclaiming "I think she could be a powerhouse."
