NBC's Lee Cowan: Covering Barack Obama Makes My Knees Quake
By Scott Whitlock | March 27, 2008 - 11:25 ET
It seems as though NBC is now expanding its bias to include paid
supplements. In a print promotional distributed by NBC News, re****ter Lee
Cowan enthused, "When NBC News first assigned me to the Barack Obama
campaign, I must confess my knees quaked a bit." This is the same
journalist
who in January famously confessed to "Nightly News" host Brian Williams
that
it's "almost hard to remain objective" when covering the "infectious"
energy
surrounding the Illinois senator. [Updated below fold with embed video
from
January]
Cowan's latest quote appeared in a NBC advertising section entitled "The
Peacock." The first person article, which recounts Cowan's excitement over
covering the Obama campaign, also featured the correspondent bubbling,
"The
task seemed daunting. Not only would the Illinois senator land me square
in
the center of rough and tumble presidential politics, but his campaign was
truly historic. I wondered if I was up to the job. I wondered if I could
do
the campaign justice. I wondered if the experience would swallow me
whole."
(The eight page spread, which featured several articles on or from NBC
News
personnel, appeared as a supplement to the March 23-29 edition of American
Profile, a magazine distributed with newspapers across the country.) Cowan
described Obama as "a whirlwind of activity, and being caught in that
tornado is a challenge every day."
Cowan closed his fawning piece by addressing viewers. He instructed, "If
we
come to your town, you'll see us-just look behind the Senator. We're all
there, for the experience of a lifetime." Cowan's rhapsodizing over Obama
hasn't changed much since his January 7 remarks (NBC video embed below) to
colleague Brian Williams. He told the "NBC Nightly News" host:
"From a re****ter's point of view it's almost hard to remain objective
because it's infectious, the energy, I think. It sort of goes against your
core to say that as a re****ter, but the crowds have gotten so much bigger,
his energy has gotten stronger. He feeds off that..."
However, it's one thing to commit bias on the air, paying for it in an
advertising supplement shows that NBC is truly taking liberal spin to the
next level. It's a good thing the network has "Saturday Night Live" to
provide balance.
--
"I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus," Obama told ABC News, "but I
would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working
for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group.
And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude."
April 11 2007 B.Hussein Obama
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