Others complained about Williams’s unwillingness to go after hard-hitting stories. Multiple sources told me that former NBC investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Lisa Myers battled with Williams over stories. In February 2013, Isikoff failed to interest Williams in a piece about a confidential Justice Department memo that justified killing American citizens with drones. He instead broke the story on [The] Rachel Maddow [Show]. That October, Myers couldn’t get Williams to air a segment about how the White House knew as far back as 2010 that some people would lose their insurance policies under Obamacare. Frustrated, Myers posted the article on [C]NBC’s website, where it immediately went viral. Williams relented and ran it the next night. “He didn’t want to put stories on the air that would be divisive,” a senior NBC journalist told me. According to a source, Myers wrote a series of scathing memos to then-NBC senior vice-president Antoine Sanfuentes documenting how Williams suppressed her stories. Myers and Isikoff eventually left the network (and both declined to comment).
That is your ENTIRE FUCKING JOB. That’s all this is. God, get out of the seat if you don’t want to piss people off.
A.
My local fishwrap – the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – did a “redesign” last year so that it more resembles Supermarket Shopper more than a newspaper. Then when it came time to extend my sub they want (this is from memory but it’s pretty close) $450/yr, around $200/yr over the previous year. I said no. About a month later one their subscription contractors called an offered to give me a year for around $200 if I allowed them to extend it another year after that at the same price. I agreed, more out of pity than anything else: my take-away is that their really hurting.
And the thing is, the paper is privately-owned rather than some cog in a corporation.
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That argues against giving your high-priced newsreader the title of Managing Editor, doesn’t it? He or she might think reading a teleprompter and looking presentable qualify as having news judgment too.