Yesterday morning, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell told Meet the Press’s audience that McCain had won the Saddleback Forum, which is accurate from everything I’ve read and the little that I was able to see. Then she engaged in a little gossip session with David Gregory. Here’s what she said:

Mitchell: “The Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because what they are putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well-prepared.”

I don’t have a problem with Ms. Mitchell bringing forth that type of gossip if she then reports that she’s checked into the allegation and found it to be without merit. Ms. Mitchell didn’t do that. She simply reported the rumor. That isn’t reporting. That’s gossipmongering.

According to this Mike Allen article, the McCain campaign wants a meeting with Steve Capus, the president of NBC News ASAP. Here’s the text of their letter to Capus:

Steve:

We are extremely disappointed to see that the level of objectivity at NBC News has fallen so low that reporters are now giving voice to unsubstantiated, partisan claims in order to undercut John McCain.

Nowhere was this more evident than with NBC chief correspondent Andrea Mitchell’s comments on “Meet the Press” this morning. In analyzing last night’s presidential forum at Saddleback Church, Mitchell expressed the Obama campaign spin that John McCain could only have done so well last night because he “may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama.” Here are Andrea Mitchell’s comments in full:

Mitchell: “The Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because what they are putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well-prepared.” (NBC’s “Meet The Press,” 8/17/08)

Make no mistake: This is a serious charge. Andrea Mitchell is repeating, uncritically, a completely unsubstantiated Obama campaign claim that John McCain somehow cheated in last night’s forum at Saddleback Church. Instead of trying to substantiate this blatant falsehood in any way, Andrea Mitchell felt that she needed to repeat it on air to millions of “Meet the Press” viewers with no indication that 1.) There’s not one shred of evidence that it’s true; 2.) In his official correspondence to both campaigns, Pastor Rick Warren provided both candidates with information regarding the topic areas to be covered, which Barack Obama acknowledged during the forum when asked about Pastor Warren’s idea of an emergency plan for orphans and Obama said, “I cheated a little bit. I actually looked at this idea ahead of time, and I think it is a great idea;” 3.) John McCain actually requested that he and Barack Obama do the forum together on stage at the same time, making these kinds of after-the-fact complaints moot.

Indeed, instead of taking a critical journalistic approach to this spin, Andrea Mitchell did what has become a pattern for her of simply repeating Obama campaign talking points.

This is irresponsible journalism and sadly, indicative of the level of objectivity we have witnessed at NBC News this election cycle. Instead of examining the Obama campaign’s spin for truth before reporting it to more than 3 million NBC News viewers, Andrea Mitchell simply passed along Obama campaign conspiracy theories. The fact is that during Senator Obama’s segment at Saddleback last night, Senator McCain was in a motorcade to the event and then held in a green room with no broadcast feed. In the forum, John McCain clearly demonstrated to the American people that he is prepared to be our next President…..

We are concerned that your News Division is following MSNBC’s lead in abandoning non-partisan coverage of the Presidential race. We would like to request a meeting with you as soon as possible to discuss our deep concerns about the news standards and level of objectivity at NBC.

Sincerely,

Rick Davis
Campaign Manager
John McCain 2008

McCain and other Republicans understand that there’s a definite liberal bias in news reporting on the networks. That isn’t what they’re complaining about. What they’re complaining about is Andrea Mitchell repeating the Obama campaign’s untruthful allegations. If Mitchell is highlighting the spin, then it’s important to (a) check into the allegation and (b) report that you couldn’t find substantiation to the rumor.

A simple call to Rick Warren would’ve put that rumor to rest.

Had Mitchell done her due diligence, she would’ve told MTP’s audience that the Obama campaign had engaged in hurtful spin that was unsubstantiated. That would’ve dramatically changed the tone of NBC’s gossipmongering.

There’s two other important points to be made. NBC News hasn’t been a straight news reporting organization for over a year. There was a time when they actually broke stories. Those days are history.

Many is the time during 2006 and 2007 that John Murtha appeared on MTP. During those interviews, Murtha would use the same statistics that he’d always used, things like 80 percent of the Iraqis want us out, that unemployment was 70 percent, etc. Tim Russert went from being a tough interrogator prior to those interviews to asking a question, then letting Rep. Murtha ramble on with that section of his monologue. That isn’t journalism. That’s taking dictation.

The point is that NBC stopped challenging the people being interviewed. NBC stopped digging into whether the rumors they’d heard were substantive. In short, they’ve become the network of the latest gossip.

Let’s also remember that MSNBC used Keith Olbermann and Chris ‘I get a tingle in my leg every time Obama speaks’ Matthews as their studio announcers on primary nights.

It’s important that NBC be held to account for their unprofessionalism. They’ve become the home for sloppy reporting. I applaud Sen. McCain’s campaign for going after this instance of NBC’s sloppy journalism.

Technorati: Media Bias, Andrea Mitchell, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Steve Capus, NBC News, Agenda Media, Barack Obama, Spin, John McCain, Rick Warren, Election 2008

Cross-posted at California Conservative