NBC just keeps covering itself in journalistic glory. Brian Williams has begun his exile for lying about a war experience, leaving a raft of questions about what else he may have fudged. Two weeks ago was “50 Shades Week” on “Today,” during which the anchors got all creepy while pimping out the soon-to open-smut flick.
And, speaking of incestuous pimping, during its first three hours, “Today” spent 14 minutes 28 seconds on last night’s SNL40 anniversary of “Saturday Night Live” – another NBC production. On the other hand, it gave all of one minute, 20 seconds to a mass atrocity and the military response to it.
Yesterday, a Libyan faction of ISIS released a video of the mass beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians. The Egyptian military responded over night with airstrikes, making it the second Arab nation to act forcefully and independently against the terror state. But to the gang at “Today,” a comedy show retrospective is 14 times more important.
To be sure, the ABC and CBS morning shows didn’t distinguish themselves with their ISIS coverage. During their two-hour morning broadcasts, CBS “This Morning” and ABC’s “Good Morning America” spent one minute 54 seconds and one minute 39 seconds on ISIS respectively. But without the financial incentive of NBC, their SNL coverage was far more reasonable – four minutes 24 seconds for CBS and two minutes 30 seconds for ABC.
So instead of actual news about the slaughter of Christians by ISIS fundamentalists, NBC viewers got self-serving chatter about favorite skits, the Red Carpet and selfies with Kanye West. The Islamist murders in Copenhagen garnered about the same amount of coverage as ISIS, which is to say a whole lot less than Eddie Murphy not telling jokes on SNL40.
