Nbc News Quotes

I will confess to you that, you know, one of the statements that’s been attributed to me that I’m sort of proud of is somebody said, you know, “What do we do about Osama bin Laden?” And they asked me, “Can we forgive him?” And I said, “Forgiveness is up to God. I just hope we hurry up the meeting.” And that’s the way I feel about him, really. [8 February 2003 show of Meet The Press, NBC News]

Love and Trust God, It's a life time commitment!!!

Furthermore, a 2014 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that a majority of Americans now refuse to identify as either Democrats or Republicans.29

I pull out my phone to write a reporting note to myself, typing “Katy sucks” into the subject line. Then I accidentally send it to the entire NBC News political e-mail list.

Consider this: Every day in America more people get their evening news from Entertainment Tonight, an insipid syndicated television show covering celebrity news, than from CBS, NBC, and ABC combined.

NBC News "Lead from gasoline blunted the IQ of about half the U.S. population, study says" by Elizabeth Chuck …on a population basis, shifting the average IQ down even a small amount could have large consequences, said Sung Kyun Park, an associate professor of epidemiology and environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. The entire bell curve shifts, he explained, with more of the population at what was once the extreme low end of IQ scores.

At age fifty-five, I left NBC News, fed up with the rat race, office politics, and the intense commercialization of the news. Farming was hard, but it was good for the soul and the ego. The cows didn’t care that I had been a big-time producer and had won three Emmys. They shit on me anyway.

May 11, Trump admitted to Lester Holt of NBC News that he was determined to fire Comey “regardless” of the recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in order to stop the investigation of the “Russia thing.” Trump isn’t the first president to attempt to obstruct justice. But he is the first to admit what he was doing on national TV, and his admissions led to the appointment of former FBI director Robert S. Mueller as a special counsel.

Larry Speakes estimated that Baker spent as much as 50 percent of his time with reporters and editors, probably an exaggeration but a revealing one. The media, at least the part of it that really mattered, was still small enough that it could be managed; aside from ABC, CBS, and NBC, there were the wire services, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the weekly newsmagazines Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. Baker, as chief of staff, became an expert in their care and feeding.

Most people don’t get (or want) to look at old news footage, but we looked at thirty years of stories relating to motherhood. In the 1970s, with the exception of various welfare reform proposals, there was almost nothing in the network news about motherhood, working mothers, or childcare. And when you go back and watch news footage from 1972, for example, all you see is John Chancellor at NBC in black and white reading the news with no illustrating graphics, or Walter Cronkite sitting in front of a map of the world that one of the Rugrats could have drawn–that’s it. But by the 1980s, the explosion in the number of working mothers, the desperate need for day care, sci-fi level reproductive technologies, the discovery of how widespread child abuse was–all this was newsworthy. At the same time, the network news shows were becoming more flashy and sensationalistic in their efforts to compete with tabloid TV offerings like A Current Affair and America’s Most Wanted. NBC, for example introduced a story about day care centers in 1984 with a beat-up Raggedy Ann doll lying limp next to a chair with the huge words Child Abuse scrawled next to her in what appeared to be Charles Manson’s handwriting. So stories that were titillating, that could be really tarted up, that were about children and sex, or children and violence–well, they just got more coverage than why Senator Rope-a-Dope refused to vote for decent day care. From the McMartin day-care scandal and missing children to Susan Smith and murdering nannies, the barrage of kids-in-jeopardy, ‘innocence corrupted’ stories made mothers feel they had to guard their kids with the same intensity as the secret service guys watching POTUS.

The one thought Conan had on the spot about the half hour at 11:35 was that it would likely exacerbate the problem he already had with Leno. 'So at least now, Jay does his show, but there's the break of the news, and that's kind of the reset button,' Conan said to Gaspin and Graboff. 'At 11:35 Jay's going to come out and do twenty jokes. And then what's he going to do?' When they replied that it seemed likely he would have only one guest, Conan said, 'OK. And then I come out and do what?' The NBC guys didn't really have an answer for that other than what Conan had already been doing: his own monologue. That this now seemed like a late-night pileup - three shows with monologues lined up end to end - was the implication no one had really addressed. Finally Conan did have something he really wanted to say, something that had almost burned a hole in his chest. 'What does Jay have on you?' Conan asked, his voice still low, his tone still even. 'What does this guy have on you people? What the hell is it about Jay?

NBC News reporter Douglas Kiker observed, while covering the Wallace campaign, “It was as if somewhere, sometime a while back, George Wallace had been awakened by a white, blinding vision: they all hate black people, all of them. They’re all afraid, all of them. Great God! That’s it! They’re all Southern! The whole United States is Southern! Anybody who travels with Wallace these days on his presidential campaign finds it hard to resist arriving at the same conclusion.” Wallace voters who agreed to be interviewed sounded like Trump voters in 2016. Most of them denied race had anything to do with their choice of candidate. They said they supported Wallace because he told it like it was and wasn’t afraid to speak his mind.

Broadcast just two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, this episode provides ample evidence that everyone involved with Fibber McGee and Molly is behind the war effort, from Wilcox’s reading a telegram from Johnson’s Wax authorizing NBC to break in with any news bulletins to Harlow’s appeal to buy defense bonds at the close which leads into a stirring version of the first verse of a patriotic hymn sung by everyone in attendance.

Angered by his quick recovery, commentators sought to recast the triumphant scene of his return to the White House. When Trump appeared on the White House balcony after his return from Walter Reed, NBC News’s presidential historian Michael Beschloss tweeted, “In America, our Presidents have generally avoided strongman balcony scenes—that’s for other countries with authoritarian systems.”61 While the tweet was amplified by Beschloss’s fellow Resistance members, Americans with better knowledge of presidential history responded with pictures of every other president pictured at the balcony, be it President Barack Obama (many, many times—once with communist dictator Xi Jinping, no less), President George W. Bush, President George H. W. Bush, President Ronald Reagan, President Jimmy Carter, President Richard Nixon, on back to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.62

Climate change is not a hot topic. As author Bill McKibben points out in a post on TomDispatch.com, in 2011, “ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox spent twice as much time discussing Donald Trump as global warming.” He documents that over the last three years, a mere ninety-eight minutes of prime-time television news was devoted to covering this global challenge. In fact, in 2011, the Sunday talk shows spent exactly nine minutes of time on climate change— all of it given over to Republican politicians focused on denying it.

The phone rang. It was a familiar voice. It was Alan Greenspan. Paul O'Neill had tried to stay in touch with people who had served under Gerald Ford, and he'd been reasonably conscientious about it. Alan Greenspan was the exception. In his case, the effort was constant and purposeful. When Greenspan was the chairman of Ford's Council of Economic Advisers, and O'Neill was number two at OMB, they had become a kind of team. Never social so much. They never talked about families or outside interests. It was all about ideas: Medicare financing or block grants - a concept that O'Neill basically invented to balance federal power and local autonomy - or what was really happening in the economy. It became clear that they thought well together. President Ford used to have them talk about various issues while he listened. After a while, each knew how the other's mind worked, the way married couples do. In the past fifteen years, they'd made a point of meeting every few months. It could be in New York, or Washington, or Pittsburgh. They talked about everything, just as always. Greenspan, O'Neill told a friend, "doesn't have many people who don't want something from him, who will talk straight to him. So that's what we do together - straight talk." O'Neill felt some straight talk coming in. "Paul, I'll be blunt. We really need you down here," Greenspan said. "There is a real chance to make lasting changes. We could be a team at the key moment, to do the things we've always talked about." The jocular tone was gone. This was a serious discussion. They digressed into some things they'd "always talked about," especially reforming Medicare and Social Security. For Paul and Alan, the possibility of such bold reinventions bordered on fantasy, but fantasy made real. "We have an extraordinary opportunity," Alan said. Paul noticed that he seemed oddly anxious. "Paul, your presence will be an enormous asset in the creation of sensible policy." Sensible policy. This was akin to prayer from Greenspan. O'Neill, not expecting such conviction from his old friend, said little. After a while, he just thanked Alan. He said he always respected his counsel. He said he was thinking hard about it, and he'd call as soon as he decided what to do. The receiver returned to its cradle. He thought about Greenspan. They were young men together in the capital. Alan stayed, became the most noteworthy Federal Reserve Bank chairman in modern history and, arguably the most powerful public official of the past two decades. O'Neill left, led a corporate army, made a fortune, and learned lessons - about how to think and act, about the importance of outcomes - that you can't ever learn in a government. But, he supposed, he'd missed some things. There were always trade-offs. Talking to Alan reminded him of that. Alan and his wife, Andrea Mitchell, White House correspondent for NBC news, lived a fine life. They weren't wealthy like Paul and Nancy. But Alan led a life of highest purpose, a life guided by inquiry. Paul O'Neill picked up the telephone receiver, punched the keypad. "It's me," he said, always his opening. He started going into the details of his trip to New York from Washington, but he's not much of a phone talker - Nancy knew that - and the small talk trailed off. "I think I'm going to have to do this." She was quiet. "You know what I think," she said. She knew him too well, maybe. How bullheaded he can be, once he decides what's right. How he had loved these last few years as a sovereign, his own man. How badly he was suited to politics, as it was being played. And then there was that other problem: she'd almost always been right about what was best for him. "Whatever, Paul. I'm behind you. If you don't do this, I guess you'll always regret it." But it was clearly about what he wanted, what he needed. Paul thanked her. Though somehow a thank-you didn't seem appropriate. And then he realized she was crying.

NBC News reporter David Gregory was on a tear. Lecturing the NRA president—and the rest of the world—on the need for gun restrictions, the D.C. media darling and host of NBC’s boring Sunday morning gabfest, Meet the Press, Gregory displayed a thirty-round magazine during an interview. This was a violation of District of Columbia law, which specifically makes it illegal to own, transfer, or sell “high-capacity ammunition.” Conservatives demanded the Mr. Gregory, a proponent of strict gun control laws, be arrested and charged for his clear violation of the laws he supports. Instead the District of Columbia’s attorney general, Irv Nathan, gave Gregory a pass: Having carefully reviewed all of the facts and circumstances of this matter, as it does in every case involving firearms-related offenses or any other potential violation of D.C. law within our criminal jurisdiction, OAG has determined to exercise its prosecutorial discretion to decline to bring criminal charges against Mr. Gregory, who has no criminal record, or any other NBC employee based on the events associated with the December 23, 2012 broadcast. What irked people even more was the attorney general admitted that NBC had willfully violated D.C. law. As he noted: No specific intent is required for this violation, and ignorance of the law or even confusion about it is no defense. We therefore did not rely in making our judgment on the feeble and unsatisfactory efforts that NBC made to determine whether or not it was lawful to possess, display and broadcast this large capacity magazine as a means of fostering the public policy debate. Although there appears to have been some misinformation provided initially, NBC was clearly and timely advised by an MPD employee that its plans to exhibit on the broadcast a high capacity-magazine would violate D.C. law. David Gregory gets a pass, but not Mark Witaschek. Witaschek was the subject of not one but two raids on his home by D.C. police. The second time that police raided Witaschek’s home, they did so with a SWAT team and even pulled his terrified teenage son out of the shower. They found inoperable muzzleloader bullets (replicas, not live ammunition, no primer) and an inoperable shotgun shell, a tchotchke from a hunting trip. Witaschek, in compliance with D.C. laws, kept his guns out of D.C. and at a family member’s home in Virginia. It wasn’t good enough for the courts, who tangled him up in a two-year court battle that he fought on principle but eventually lost. As punishment, the court forced him to register as a gun offender, even though he never had a firearm in the city. Witaschek is listed as a “gun offender”—not to be confused with “sex offender,” though that’s exactly the intent: to draw some sort of correlation, to make possession of a common firearm seem as perverse as sexual offenses. If only Mark Witaschek got the break that David Gregory received.

IDENTITY CLUE 9: “THEY ARE MAD UPON THEIR IDOLS”            “…for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols” (Jeremiah 50:38b)            What is America’s currently most watched television program? Is it NBC News? Or ‘In Touch Ministries’ with Dr. Charles Stanley? No, and really, it could not have been more appropriately named. AMERICAN IDOL draws more viewers than any other television program, week after week. In the most recent season over 624,000,000 votes were cast. In the Old Testament, Israelites persisted in ascribing to hand carved idols powers and abilities that only God retains. In our day, we provide to actors and sports figures, not only mega wealth, we also ascribe wisdom to these human idols. We listen attentively to the political and governmental views of people who are paid to be something they are not. Voters are actually swayed in determining how they vote by what an actor or sports figure may say, or whom he or she may endorse. We are “mad upon our idols.

The show made national news in June by yanking off the air at the last minute a story detailing the 1937 escape from Alcatraz of convicts Ralph Roe and Theodore Cole. The FBI had always maintained that Roe and Cole drowned, a point hotly disputed by ex-inmate Pat Reed, the story’s main source. NBC pulled the show at the FBI’s request, leaving Reed crying coverup.

As the New York Times described it, Trump was “urging a power often hostile to the United States to violate American law by breaking into a private computer network.” Katy Tur of NBC News followed up to see if this was a joke or he really meant it. She asked if Trump had “any qualms” about asking a foreign government to break into Americans’ emails. Instead of backing off, he doubled down. “If Russia or China or any other country has those emails, I mean, to be honest with you, I’d love to see them,” he said. He also refused to tell Putin not to try to interfere in the election: “I’m not going to tell Putin what to do; why should I tell Putin what to do?” This was no joke. Despite Trump’s attempts to cover for Putin, cybersecurity experts and U.S. intelligence officials were confident that the Russians were behind the hack. There still wasn’t official consensus about whether their goal was to undermine public confidence in America’s democratic institutions or if Putin was actively trying to derail my candidacy and help elect Trump. But I didn’t have any doubt. And the timing of the public disclosure, as well as the specific nature of the material (did Russian intelligence really understand the ins and outs of DNC politics and the decisions of Debbie Wasserman Schultz?), raised the strong possibility that the Russians had gotten help from someone with experience in American politics—a truly alarming prospect.

The yard and the walk outside grew crowded with cops and media people and rubberneckers from the neighborhood drawn by gathering news vans. Between questions I watched the on-air television talent fan out among the cops. A woman I’d seen a thousand times on the local NBC affiliate was talking with her camera operator when the camera operator saw me standing in the window and pointed me out. The reporter said something and the operator trained his camera on me. The reporter ducked past Flutey and hurried over to the window. She was all frosted hair and intelligent eyes. “Are you the detective who found the kidnappers?” I gave her Bill Dana. “My name José Jimenez.

Yes, I had left the State Department with some of the highest approval ratings of anyone in public life—one poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC News in January 2013 put me at 69 percent. I was also the most admired woman in the world, according to the annual Gallup poll. Ah, the good old days. But I knew that

Alaska’s governor Walter Hickel, a champion of development, builder of shopping malls, and proponent of wolf control, told NBC News, “You just can’t let nature run wild.

I’m amazed at how this has snowballed into such a media event. It began last week when I saw a national news report by Tom Brokaw about this adorable little lady from Georgia, Mrs. Hill, who was trying to save her farm from being foreclosed. Her sixty-seven-year-old husband had committed suicide a few weeks earlier, hoping his life insurance would save the farm, which had been in the family for generations. But the insurance proceeds weren’t nearly enough. It was a very sad situation, and I was moved. Here were people who’d worked very hard and honestly all their lives, only to see it all crumble before them. To me, it just seemed wrong. Through NBC I was put in touch with a wonderful guy from Georgia named Frank Argenbright, who’d become very involved in trying to help Mrs. Hill. Frank directed me to the bank that held Mrs. Hill’s mortgage. The next morning, I called and got some vice president on the line. I explained that I was a businessman from New York, and that I was interested in helping Mrs. Hill. He told me he was sorry, but that it was too late. They were going to auction off the farm, he said, and “nothing or no one is going to stop it.” That really got me going. I said to the guy: “You listen to me. If you do foreclose, I’ll personally bring a lawsuit for murder against you and your bank, on the grounds that you harassed Mrs. Hill’s husband to his death.” All of a sudden the bank officer sounded very nervous and said he’d get right back to me. Sometimes it pays to be a little wild. An hour later I got a call back from the banker, and he said, “Don’t worry, we’re going to work it out, Mr. Tramp.” Mrs. Hill and Frank Argenbright told the media, and the next thing I knew, it was the lead story on the network news. By the end of the week, we’d raised $40,000. Imus alone raised almost $20,000 by appealing to his listeners. As a Christmas present to Mrs. Hill and her family, we’ve scheduled a mortgage-burning ceremony for Christmas Eve in the atrium of Trump Tower. By then, I’m confident, we’ll have raised all the money. I’ve promised Mrs. Hill that if we haven’t, I’ll make up any difference. I tell Imus he’s the greatest, and I invite him to be my guest one day next week at the tennis matches at the U.S. Open. I have a courtside box and I used to go myself almost every day. Now I’m so busy I mostly just send my friends.

Meanwhile, privatization of the occupation is gathering speed. AnyVision is an Israeli start-up that secretly monitors Palestinians across the West Bank with a range of cameras, the locations of which are not acknowledged by the company or Israel. Artificial intelligence thus merges with biometrics and facial recognition at dozens of Israeli checkpoints throughout the West Bank. AnyVision claims that its technology does not discriminate on the basis of race or gender and that it creates only “ethical” products. When asked by NBC News in 2019 about its work in the West Bank, CEO Eylon Etshtein initially threatened to sue them, denied there even was an occupation, and accused the NBC reporter of being paid by Palestinian activists.42 He later apologized for the outburst.

AnyVision is shy about admitting its true role in the West Bank, but digging by NBC News uncovered a project, called Google Ayosh, targeting all Palestinians with the use of big data. AnyVision continues to use the occupation as a vital source to train its systems in the mass surveillance of Palestinians, focusing, it says, on attempts to stop any Palestinian attackers.43 AnyVision is a global company that operates in over forty countries, including Russia, China (Hong Kong), and the US, and in countless locations such as casinos, manufacturing, and even fitness centers. The company changed its name to Oosto in late 2021, and raised US$235 million that year to further develop its AI-enabled surveillance tools. The former head of Mossad, Tamir Pardo, is an advisor and it is staffed by Israel’s intelligence Unit 8200 veterans. It promotes itself as building a world “safer through visual intelligence.” AnyVision so impressed Microsoft that the Seattle software giant briefly invested US$74 million in the company in 2019 before facing a massive backlash. It cut its ties with AnyVision in 2020 due to pressure from the “Palestinian lobby on the Democratic Party,” according to the former head of Israel’s Defense Export Control Agency, though it continues to develop its own facial recognition technology.44 The former Biden administration press secretary Jen Psaki worked for AnyVision as a “crisis communications consultant” and earned at least US$5,000 at some point between leaving the Obama administration in 2017 and starting in the Biden White House.

These ladies are not stupid, or ignorant. Mrs. Thompson can read both Latin and Spanish, and Ms. Voigtlander is a certified speech therapist who once explained to me that the strange gulping sound that makes NBC’s Tom Brokaw so distracting to listen to is an actual speech impediment called a glottal L. It was one of the ladies out in the kitchen supporting Mrs. R—- who pointed out that 11 September is the anniversary of the Camp David Accords, which was certainly news to me. What

Dateline is a major prime-time news show in America, reaching millions of viewers on the NBC network. So it should have been very good news when the show’s producers informed us that they wanted to do a segment on Steve, and they wanted to film it in Queensland. “We want to experience him firsthand in the bush,” the producer told me cheerfully ove the phone. Do you really, mate? I wanted to say. I had been with Steve in the bush. It was the most fantastic experience, but I wasn’t sure he understood how remote the bush really was. I simply responded with all the right words about how excited we were to have Dateline come film. The producers wanted two totally different environments in which to film. We chose the deserts of Queensland with the most venomous snake on earth, and the Cape York mangroves--crocodile territory. Great! responded Dateline. Perfect! Only…the host was a woman, who had to look presentable, so she needed a generator for her blow-dryer. And a Winnebago, because it wasn’t really fair to ask her to throw a swag on the ground among the scorpions and spiders. This film shoot would mean a bit of additional expense. We weren’t just grabbing Sui and the Ute and setting out. But the exposure we would get on Dateline would be good for wildlife conservation, our zoo, and tourism. I telephoned a representative of the Queensland Tourism and Travel Commission in Los Angeles. “I wonder if you could help us out,” I asked. “This Dateline segment will showcase Queensland to people in America.” Could Queensland Tourism possibly subsidize the cost of a generator and a Winnebago? Silence at the end of the line. “What you are showing off of Queensland,” a voice carefully explained, “is not how we want tourists to see our fair country.” The most venomous snake on earth? Giant crocodiles? No, thanks. “But people are fascinated by dangerous animals,” I began to argue. I was wasting my time. There was no convincing him. We scraped up the money ourselves, and off we went with the Dateline crew into the bush.

Dateline is a major prime-time news show in America, reaching millions of viewers on the NBC network. So it should have been very good news when the show’s producers informed us that they wanted to do a segment on Steve, and they wanted to film it in Queensland. “We want to experience him firsthand in the bush,” the producer told me cheerfully ove the phone. Do you really, mate? I wanted to say. I had been with Steve in the bush. It was the most fantastic experience, but I wasn’t sure he understood how remote the bush really was. I simply responded with all the right words about how excited we were to have Dateline come film.

Ken Wharfe In 1987, Ken Wharfe was appointed a personal protection officer to Diana. In charge of the Princess’s around-the-clock security at home and abroad, in public and in private, Ken Wharfe became a close friend and loyal confidant who shared her most private moments. After Diana’s death, Inspector Wharfe was honored by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and made a Member of the Victorian Order, a personal gift of the sovereign for his loyal service to her family. His book, Diana: Closely Guarded Secret, is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. He is a regular contributor with the BBC, ITN, Sky News, NBC, CBS, and CNN, participating in numerous outside broadcasts and documentaries for BBC--Newsnight, Channel 4 News, Channel 5 News, News 24, and GMTV. Diana looked out toward the Isle of Wight, anxious by now to set off on her walk to the Old Harry Rocks at the western extremity of Studland Bay. I gave her a personal two-way radio and a sketch map of the shoreline she could expect to see, indicating a landmark near some beach huts at the far end of the bay, a tavern or pub, called the Bankes Arms, where I would meet her. She set off at once, a tall figure clad in a pair of blue denim jeans, a dark-blue suede jacket, and a soft scarf wrapped loosely around her face to protect her from the chilling, easterly spring wind. I stood and watched as she slowly dwindled in the distance, her head held high, alone apart from busy oyster catchers that followed her along the water’s edge.

Piers Morgan Piers Morgan is a British journalist best known for his editorial work for the Daily Mirror from 1995 through 2004. He is also a successful author and television personality whose recent credits include a recurring role as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. A controversial member of the tabloid press during Diana’s lifetime, Piers Morgan established a uniquely close relationship with the Princess during the 1990s. William arrived at 1 p.m., age thirteen and a half, with braces on his teeth. Tall, shy, and clearly rather bemused to be here, he nodded, rather embarrassed, in my direction. “Hello, sir,” I said, totally unsure of what to call him. “Hello,” he replied, preferring not to call me anything. Jane Atkinson made up the four. We went through to a small but very pleasant little dining room to eat. William asked Diana if she’d seen the portrait of the Queen in yesterday’s papers. “Her hands looked like she’d been in the garden all day; they were all big and dirty,” he laughed. Diana giggled instinctively, then stopped herself. “William, please, don’t say that.” “Sorry, Mummy, but it’s true: Granny did look really funny.” Granny. How odd it sounded. “Can I have some wine, Mummy?” “No, William! Whatever are you thinking?” “But Mummy, I drink it all the time.” “Erm, no, you don’t actually, and, well, you can’t have any.” “Yes, I can,” he replied with a mischievous but determined grin. And he did. A small but interesting piece of power play to observe. William knew what he wanted, and Diana was a soft touch with her boys. Both facts seemed quite good news to me.

Ken Wharfe In 1987, Ken Wharfe was appointed a personal protection officer to Diana. In charge of the Princess’s around-the-clock security at home and abroad, in public and in private, Ken Wharfe became a close friend and loyal confidant who shared her most private moments. After Diana’s death, Inspector Wharfe was honored by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and made a Member of the Victorian Order, a personal gift of the sovereign for his loyal service to her family. His book, Diana: Closely Guarded Secret, is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. He is a regular contributor with the BBC, ITN, Sky News, NBC, CBS, and CNN, participating in numerous outside broadcasts and documentaries for BBC--Newsnight, Channel 4 News, Channel 5 News, News 24, and GMTV. My memory of Diana is not her at an official function, dazzling with her looks and clothes and the warmth of her manner, or even of her offering comfort among the sick, the poor, and the dispossessed. What I remember best is a young woman taking a walk in a beautiful place, unrecognized, carefree, and happy. Diana increasingly craved privacy, a chance “to be normal,” to have the opportunity to do what, in her words, “ordinary people” do every day of their lives--go shopping, see friends, go on holiday, and so on--away from the formality and rituals of royal life. As someone responsible for her security, yet understanding her frustration, I was sympathetic. So when in the spring of the year in which she would finally be separated from her husband, Prince Charles, she yet again raised the suggestion of being able to take a walk by herself, I agreed that such a simple idea could be realized. Much of my childhood had been spent on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, a county in southern England approximately 120 miles from London; I remembered the wonderful sandy beaches of Studland Bay, on the approach to Poole Harbour. The idea of walking alone on miles of almost deserted sandy beach was something Diana had not even dared dream about. At this time she was receiving full twenty-four-hour protection, and it was at my discretion how many officers should be assigned to her protection. “How will you manage it, Ken? What about the backup?” she asked. I explained that this venture would require us to trust each other, and she looked at me for a moment and nodded her agreement. And so, early one morning less than a week later, we left Kensington Palace and drove to the Sandbanks ferry at Poole in an ordinary saloon car. As we gazed at the coastline from the shabby viewing deck of the vintage chain ferry, Diana’s excitement was obvious, yet not one of the other passengers recognized her. But then, no one would have expected the most photographed woman in the world to be aboard the Studland chain ferry on a sunny spring morning in May. As the ferry docked after its short journey, we climbed back into the car and then, once the ramp had been lowered, drove off in a line of cars and service trucks heading for Studland and Swanage. Diana was driving, and I asked her to stop in a sand-covered area about half a mile from the ferry landing point. We left the car and walked a short distance across a wooded bridge that spanned a reed bed to the deserted beach of Shell Bay. Her simple pleasure at being somewhere with no one, apart from me, knowing her whereabouts was touching to see. Diana looked out toward the Isle of Wight, anxious by now to set off on her walk to the Old Harry Rocks at the western extremity of Studland Bay. I gave her a personal two-way radio and a sketch map of the shoreline she could expect to see, indicating a landmark near some beach huts at the far end of the bay, a tavern or pub, called the Bankes Arms, where I would meet her.

Ken Wharfe In 1987, Ken Wharfe was appointed a personal protection officer to Diana. In charge of the Princess’s around-the-clock security at home and abroad, in public and in private, Ken Wharfe became a close friend and loyal confidant who shared her most private moments. After Diana’s death, Inspector Wharfe was honored by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and made a Member of the Victorian Order, a personal gift of the sovereign for his loyal service to her family. His book, Diana: Closely Guarded Secret, is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. He is a regular contributor with the BBC, ITN, Sky News, NBC, CBS, and CNN, participating in numerous outside broadcasts and documentaries for BBC--Newsnight, Channel 4 News, Channel 5 News, News 24, and GMTV. And so, early one morning less than a week later, we left Kensington Palace and drove to the Sandbanks ferry at Poole in an ordinary saloon car. As we gazed at the coastline from the shabby viewing deck of the vintage chain ferry, Diana’s excitement was obvious, yet not one of the other passengers recognized her. But then, no one would have expected the most photographed woman in the world to be aboard the Studland chain ferry on a sunny spring morning in May. As the ferry docked after its short journey, we climbed back into the car and then, once the ramp had been lowered, drove off in a line of cars and service trucks heading for Studland and Swanage. Diana was driving, and I asked her to stop in a sand-covered area about half a mile from the ferry landing point. We left the car and walked a short distance across a wooded bridge that spanned a reed bed to the deserted beach of Shell Bay. Her simple pleasure at being somewhere with no one, apart from me, knowing her whereabouts was touching to see. Diana looked out toward the Isle of Wight, anxious by now to set off on her walk to the Old Harry Rocks at the western extremity of Studland Bay. I gave her a personal two-way radio and a sketch map of the shoreline she could expect to see, indicating a landmark near some beach huts at the far end of the bay, a tavern or pub, called the Bankes Arms, where I would meet her. She set off at once, a tall figure clad in a pair of blue denim jeans, a dark-blue suede jacket, and a soft scarf wrapped loosely around her face to protect her from the chilling, easterly spring wind. I stood and watched as she slowly dwindled in the distance, her head held high, alone apart from busy oyster catchers that followed her along the water’s edge. It was a strange sensation watching her walking away by herself, with no bodyguards following at a discreet distance. What were my responsibilities here? I kept thinking. Yet I knew this area well, and not once did I feel uneasy. I had made this decision--not one of my colleagues knew. Senior officers at Scotland Yard would most certainly have boycotted the idea had I been foolish enough to give them advance notice of what the Princess and I were up to.

The New York Times and the Washington Post each contain roughly 100,000 words a day—about as many as this book. A typical NBC Nightly News broadcast contains 3,600 words.

In September 2009, the White House had fired a warning shot, cutting veteran reporter and Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace out of a round of interviews with the president on healthcare reform. White House Communications Director Anita Dunn conceded that CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS were included, but Fox was excluded because the administration did not like the way Fox covered the administration.12 Deputy White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer explained the snub to the New York Times: “We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional news organization.”13

Piers Morgan Piers Morgan is a British journalist best known for his editorial work for the Daily Mirror from 1995 through 2004. He is also a successful author and television personality whose recent credits include a recurring role as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. A controversial member of the tabloid press during Diana’s lifetime, Piers Morgan established a uniquely close relationship with the Princess during the 1990s. The conversation moved swiftly to the latest edition of “Have I Got News for You.” “Oh, Mummy, it was hilarious,” laughed William. “They had a photo of Mrs. Parker Bowles and a horse’s head and asked what the difference was. The answer was that there isn’t any!” Diana absolutely exploded with laughter. We talked about which was the hottest photo to get. “Charles and Camilla is still the really big one,” I said, “followed by you and a new man, and now, of course, William with his first girlfriend.” He groaned. So did Diana. Our “big ones” are the most intimate parts of their personal lives. It was a weird moment. I am the enemy, really, but we were getting on well and sort of developing a better understanding of each other as we went along. Lunch was turning out to be basically a series of front-page exclusive stories--none of which I was allowed to publish, although I did joke that “I would save it for my book”--a statement that caused Diana to fix me with a stare, and demand to know if I was carrying a tape recorder. “No,” I replied, truthfully. “Are you?” We both laughed, neither quite knowing what the answer really was. The lunch was one of the most exhilarating, fascinating, and exasperating two hours of my life. I was allowed to ask Diana literally anything I liked, which surprised me, given William’s presence. But he was clearly in the loop on most of her bizarre world and, in particular, the various men who came into it from time to time. The News of the World had, during my editorship, broken the Will Carling, Oliver Hoare, and James Hewitt scoops, so I had a special interest in those. So, unsurprisingly, did Diana. She was still raging about Julia Carling: “She’s milking it for all she’s worth, that woman. Honestly. I haven’t seen Will since June ’95. He’s not the man in black you lot keep going on about. I’m not saying who that is, and you will never guess, but it’s not Will.” William interjected: “I keep a photo of Julia Carling on my dartboard at Eton.” That was torture. That was three fantastic scoops in thirty seconds. Diana urged me to tell William the story of what we did to Hewitt in the Mirror after he spilled the beans in the ghastly Anna Pasternak book. I dutifully recounted how we hired a white horse, dressed a Mirror reporter in full armor, and charged Hewitt’s home to confront him on allegations of treason with regard to his sleeping with the wife of a future king--an offense still punishable by death. Diana exploded again. “It was hysterical. I have never laughed so much.” She clearly had no time for Hewitt, despite her “I adored him” TV confessional.

Ken Wharfe In 1987, Ken Wharfe was appointed a personal protection officer to Diana. In charge of the Princess’s around-the-clock security at home and abroad, in public and in private, Ken Wharfe became a close friend and loyal confidant who shared her most private moments. After Diana’s death, Inspector Wharfe was honored by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and made a Member of the Victorian Order, a personal gift of the sovereign for his loyal service to her family. His book, Diana: Closely Guarded Secret, is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. He is a regular contributor with the BBC, ITN, Sky News, NBC, CBS, and CNN, participating in numerous outside broadcasts and documentaries for BBC--Newsnight, Channel 4 News, Channel 5 News, News 24, and GMTV. It was a strange sensation watching her walking away by herself, with no bodyguards following at a discreet distance. What were my responsibilities here? I kept thinking. Yet I knew this area well, and not once did I feel uneasy. I had made this decision--not one of my colleagues knew. Senior officers at Scotland Yard would most certainly have boycotted the idea had I been foolish enough to give them advance notice of what the Princess and I were up to. Before Diana disappeared from sight, I called her on the radio. Her voice was bright and lively, and I knew instinctively that she was happy, and safe. I walked back to the car and drove slowly along the only road that runs adjacent to the bay, with heath land and then the sea to my left and the waters of Poole Harbour running up toward Wareham, a small market town, to my right. Within a matter of minutes, I was turning into the car park of the Bankes Arms, a fine old pub that overlooks the bay. I left the car and strolled down to the beach, where I sat on an old wall in the bright sunshine. The beach huts were locked, and there was no sign of life. To my right I could see the Old Harry Rocks--three tall pinnacles of chalk standing in the sea, all that remains, at the landward end, of a ridge that once ran due east to the Isle of Wight. Like the Princess, I, too, just wanted to carry on walking. Suddenly, my radio crackled into life: “Ken, it’s me--can you hear me?” I fumbled in the large pockets of my old jacket, grabbed the radio, and said, “Yes. How is it going?” “Ken, this is amazing, I can’t believe it,” she said, sounding truly happy. Genuinely pleased for her, I hesitated before replying, but before I could speak she called again, this time with that characteristic mischievous giggle in her voice. “You never told me about the nudist colony!” she yelled, and laughed raucously over the radio. I laughed, too--although what I actually thought was “Uh-oh!” But judging from her remarks, whatever she had seen had made her laugh. At this point, I decided to walk toward her, after a few minutes seeing her distinctive figure walking along the water’s edge toward me. Two dogs had joined her and she was throwing sticks into the sea for them to retrieve; there were no crowd barriers, no servants, no police, apart from me, and no overattentive officials. Not a single person had recognized her. For once, everything for the Princess was “normal.” During the seven years I had worked for her, this was an extraordinary moment, one I shall never forget.

Walker had traveled to London on a mission to promote Wisconsin for trade purposes, and an interviewer had asked him the tiresome and irrelevant question whether he believes in evolution. Walker refused to answer the question. “That’s a question politicians shouldn’t be involved in one way or another,” he said. “I am going to leave that up to you. I’m here to talk about trade, not to pontificate about evolution.” Asking a Scott Walker whether he believes in evolution when only 19 percent of the American populace believes it to be the only explanation for why we are here is a device for measuring his membership in the smart set. After all, Walker isn’t the only prominent American without a college degree. Take NBC News, for example. Its outgoing serial fabulist anchor Brian Williams never graduated from college, and neither did Williams’ replacement Lester Holt. But both Williams and Holt would dutifully parrot the “pro-science” viewpoint that yes, yes, evolution explains the origins of mankind. It’s only those knuckle-dragging white Christian rednecks from flyover territory who believe otherwise. And since Walker lacks an Ivy League pedigree or in fact even a degree at all, if he can be engaged to spout bible-beating hokum on foreign shores that surely would be the end of him.

Vlasto had the early exit numbers that the consortium of news networks—the Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC News—had collected. The consortium followed eleven battleground states, including Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Trump was down in eight of the eleven states by five to eight points. The news was devastating. A kill shot. You just don’t come back from spreads like that, Dave thought. There just weren’t enough votes out there to come back from five to eight points down.

Soon an accommodation was reached. NBC News covered the event,

The hourly anti-media shtick was best understood this way: Fox was a 24/7 ad for Fox. Every insult hurled at CNN and NBC doubled as a reminder not to change the channel. Every segment about some other news outlet’s screwup doubled as a declaration to only trust Fox. It was as effective as it was cynical, and Trump helped by battering Fox’s competition every step of the way.

NBC-TV affiliate as a news reporter and weekends emceeing shows at the Tanaka Institute, is staring at the digital clock on the dashboard, growing impatient.

By this point, Solo was hardly a stranger to controversy within the national team. The world had seen how she’d criticized Greg Ryan’s decision at the 2007 World Cup and was kicked off the team. During the 2012 Olympics, she’d called out Brandi Chastain, who was a commentator for NBC, tweeting: “Lay off commentating about defending and goalkeeping until you get more educated @brandichastain. The game has changed from a decade ago.” Now, her arrest and assault charges were front-page news. But there was a history within the team of things involving Solo that needed to be dealt with, even if they were never made public. Pia Sundhage admits she had to deal with a couple of issues while she coached Solo, but she didn’t let it become the focus of what she was doing. “There were one or two things, but you have to be respectful, you have to be smart, and you have to just talk to people,” Sundhage says. “We worked it out. We wanted to train. We wanted to improve the game.

AnyVision is shy about admitting its true role in the West Bank, but digging by NBC News uncovered a project, called Google Ayosh, targeting all Palestinians with the use of big data. AnyVision continues to use the occupation as a vital source to train its systems in the mass surveillance of Palestinians, focusing, it says, on attempts to stop any Palestinian attackers.43 AnyVision is a global company that operates in over forty countries, including Russia, China (Hong Kong), and the US, and in countless locations such as casinos, manufacturing, and even fitness centers. The company changed its name to Oosto in late 2021, and raised US$235 million that year to further develop its AI-enabled surveillance tools. The former head of Mossad, Tamir Pardo, is an advisor and it is staffed by Israel’s intelligence Unit 8200 veterans. It promotes itself as building a world “safer through visual intelligence.

Woods Hole had arranged interviews for me with one reporter after another, using Knorr’s ship-to-shore hookup. Just as I started talking to Tom Brokaw, the NBC News anchor, I looked out and saw that we were actually sailing away from the Titanic site. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, I thought. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I had started this quest for its own sake, focused mainly on the challenge. But now I had a deep emotional connection to Titanic. Its resting place is one of those places that speaks to you, like Gettysburg or Normandy.

As recently reported by NBC News, “Two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine offer almost no protection against coronavirus infection in kids ages 5 to 11, according to new data posted online—a finding that may have consequences for parents and their vaccinated children.” Also,

And because this was the first ed reform campaign run like a political campaign, we became the firm to call if you had an education-related problem. (We ended up helping Michelle Rhee create StudentsFirst, helping NBC News create Education Nation, and running ed reform campaigns in cities and states all over the country.) Now that I’ve been running a business for eight years, I’ve learned that clients come and go in waves, often for no good reason. It’s kind of like sports—sometimes you’re just hot and every plate appearance is a hit and sometimes you’re not and nothing new comes in. You’re the same person in both situations. You didn’t get any smarter or dumber. You didn’t work any harder or less hard. It’s just random—and everyone I know in any sort of client-services business feels the exact same way.*

The Apprentice conditioned Americans to accept fraud as entertainment, to expect the reputational rehab of ruined celebrities, and to not consider that behind the fakeness of the show lay something very dark and real. In 2015, after Trump launched his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists and murderers, NBC canceled The Apprentice on moral grounds. Freed from his contract, Trump continued his reality show through cable news, which lacked the fleeting fortitude of NBC. In the end, The Apprentice canceled America.

Within a vision, for a vision, yeah, it is All, I ever wished for, America!

JOHN B. HUGHES, NBC and Mutual commentator; specialist on the Orient. Hughes came out of theater; his work in a stock company led to radio, which led him into news. After a season on NBC, he joined Mutual, predicted that Japan would attack the United States, and was used extensively in Mutual’s West Coast

Shortly after Trump’s media event, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer published a parody. Watch excerpts from the original and then Schumer’s satire, which begins at minute 1:01 of this NBC News report.

On Fox News a few days earlier, Tucker Carlson had sat in front of a picture of Oppenheim and called for his resignation. “Let’s be clear. NBC is lying,” Carlson said. “Many powerful people knew what Harvey Weinstein was doing and not only ignored his crimes but actively took his side against his many victims. It’s a long list but at the very top of that list is NBC News.” He appeared to relish the chance to attack a mainstream outlet, Hollywood liberals, and a sexual predator all at once. “News executives are not allowed to tell lies,” he said, as if he’d never met one.

14. He’s denied climate change. Then denied that he denied it.​​ Here’s Trump calling global warming a conspiracy created by the Chinese: The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. @realDonaldTrump – 11:15 AM – 6 Nov 2012 More tweets of him calling global warming a hoax… NBC News just called it the great freeze – coldest weather in years. Is our country still spending money on the GLOBAL WARMING HOAX? @realDonaldTrump – 3:48 PM – 25 Jan 2014 This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice @realDonaldTrump – 4:39 PM – 1 Jan 2014 Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee – I’m in Los Angeles and it’s freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax! @realDonaldTrump – 7:13 AM – 6 Dec 2013 Then, during a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump denied that he said any of this. Here’s the video. Clinton says, “Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax, perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it’s real.” Trump interrupts to say, “I do not say that. I do not say that.” Actually, Donald, you’ve said nothing else. Trump has also said, dozens of times in tweets like this, that global warming sounds like a great idea: It’s freezing and snowing in New York–we need global warming! @realDonaldTrump – 11:24 AM – 7 Nov 2012 Here he is hating wind turbines: It’s Friday. How many bald eagles did wind turbines kill today? They are an environmental & aesthetic disaster. @realDonaldTrump – 12:55 PM – 24 Aug 2012 Trump fought against a “really ugly” offshore wind farm in Scotland because it would mar the view from his Scottish golf resort. My new club on the Atlantic Ocean in Ireland will soon be one of the best in the World – and no-one will be looking into ugly wind turbines! @realDonaldTrump – 5:24 AM – 14 Feb 2014

he saw that young people were not only not watching television news each night, but they were watching less and less TV, period. The high point for television news audiences came in the 1960s. In 1985 almost 50 million Americans watched a nightly network news program, but by 2008, when VBS was attempting to invent a new kind of documentary news, the number had declined sharply, to 29 million. The combined viewership of NBC, ABC, and CBS was about what Walter Cronkite’s was when he sat in the anchor’s chair and was the most trusted man in America

DOROTHY THOMPSON, crusading commentator whose radio work supplemented her widely read “On the Record” newspaper column to make her one of the most controversial news personalities of two decades. She became an international celebrity in 1934 after a series of magazine articles got her thrown out of Germany by Hitler. Her tirades against Hitler grew so heated that her sponsor, Pall Mall Cigarettes, was uncomfortable, and her NBC contract was not renewed when it expired in May 1938.

or maybe—even worse—on NBC Nightly News.

The result was a show of startling realism for its day. It had the air of a front-page newspaper story. At first NBC was nervous over his predictions of major crime waves; then, when they came to pass, the network took pride in his accuracy. Both the network and the government were uneasy when Byron’s DA began foiling Nazis. On the show of June 17, 1942, Byron ran a story about Nazi submarines dropping spies along the Atlantic coast. G-men had arrested real spies that same week and were preparing to break the news themselves. Byron got a “visit” from the FBI after his show.

I always had an attitude that whatever came my way, I’d overcome it. I wouldn’t let it hold me back.

On Fox News a few days earlier, Tucker Carlson had sat in front of a picture of Oppenheim and called for his resignation. “Let’s be clear. NBC is lying,” Carlson said. “Many powerful people knew what Harvey Weinstein was doing and not only ignored his crimes but actively took his side against his many victims. It’s a long list but at the very top of that list is NBC News.

During the report of Fred’s death on the Nightly News program on NBC, the network where Fred got his start in television, reporter Bob Faw said, “The real Mister Rogers never preached, [never] even mentioned God [on his show].” And then Faw added, “He never had to.