Greenwald: America’s meritocratic, watchdog news media

[seafan]

NBC Hires Luke Russert as a Correspondent, NYT, July 31, 2008


Jenna Bush Joins NBC's 'Today' Show, Business Insider, August 31, 2009


Meghan McCain: MSNBC Contributor, TVNewser, November 2, 2011


Chelsea Clinton to Report for NBC, NYT, November 13, 2011



But, we aren't supposed to notice the media meritocracy when we go looking for evidence of exploding public outcry across the country.




Glenn Greenwald speaks for many.


November 14, 2011

I really don’t understand what those angry, lazy losers in the Occupy movement are so upset about. America is a meritocracy; if you work hard and prove your skills, you get ahead. The winners deserve what they have because they have earned it. And when all else fails, we have a media filled with insurgent outsiders who will be relentless watchdogs over those in power because that’s what our media outlets are: true outsiders there to check the most powerful factions.

Even more encouragingly, we have a media that ensures that diverse views are heard; Chelsea Clinton previously worked at a $12 billion hedge fund and her former-Goldman-Sachs-banker husband earlier this year launched his own hedge fund with “two guys from Goldman,” so she brings a depth and diversity of perspetive that is sorely lacking in our news (true, CNN boldly features Erin Burnett — the former Goldman, Sachs employee and current fiancé of a top Citigroup executive — but nothing can compete with Chelsea Clinton’s rich, impressive journalism background).

.....

We all owe our gratitude to NBC News for single-handedly correcting the shameful, long-standing exclusion from our media discourse of the views of young, journalistically accomplished heirs and heiresses to political power and great fortune; it is long overdue that former NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller, son of the CEO and Chairman of Chevron, finally be joined by the next generation.

As the weary job interview lines of qualified people grow by the hour across the country, watching more of the privileged few needing merely to present themselves at the front of the line to accept the golden prizes, is tough to take.



He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. ---Texas Governor Ann Richards, about George HW Bush








We must reject political dynasties in America.

[slipslidingaway]

1. knr nt

[hifiguy]

2. Greenwald definitely speaks for me on this issue.

I don't care whose kids the beneficiaries are. Nepotism and quasi-aristocratic dynasties spit in the face of everything the Founders stood for.

[closeupready]

3. If the truth hurts, this pained my funny bone, because it made me laugh. K&R

I should be crying instead, but I guess it's funny because people like Mike Brzezinski and Erin Burnett likely convince themselves that they got where they are sheerly on merit alone, and that their good looks or connections had NOTHING to do with it.

[Scuba]

4. Would it be more accurate to say they are NOT a meritocracy?

More like royalty?

[Octafish]

5. Conspiratorial Wink

Duckman in "The Mallardian Candidate."