Chelsea Clinton

Remember when Chelsea Clinton and NBC News launched this misadventure featuring her as a "special correspondent" on "Rock Center" with a fanfare of hype and outright lies about what she and the journalistically-challenged NBC News were up to? Steve Capus, the recently deposed president of NBC News, said "it was as if she had been preparing her whole life" for the job. Clinton herself told "Rock Center" host Brian Williams as part of her first appearance that she took the TV job to lead a more "purposefully public life" highlighting people who are "making a difference.

You will find no tears here for the cancellation of Brian Williams' "Rock Center," which was first reported Friday by the New York Times. It was one of the sorriest excuses for a newsmagazine that I have seen in 30 years of reporting on network television. I wrote that as many times in as many ways as I could since its debut. From the hiring of the Chelsea Clinton as special correspondent, to the quotes from Williams comparing his team to the baseball Hall of Famers in Cooperstown, never has such journalistic bankruptcy been promoted with such self-important bluster.

NEW YORK - Chelsea Clinton, the 29-year-old daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is engaged to her longtime boyfriend, 31-year-old investment banker Marc Mezvinsky. The couple is looking at a possible wedding next summer. Mezvinsky is a son of former Pennsylvania Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky and former Iowa Rep. Ed Mezvinsky, longtime friends of the Clintons. Ed Mezvinsky was released from federal prison last year after serving a nearly five-year sentence for wire and bank fraud.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy I have been complaining for more than a year about what a journalistically bankrupt decision NBC News made in hiring Chelsea Clinton as a special correspondent for Brian Williams "Rock Center. " I have reviewed each of her performances chronicling the downward arc of her learning curve. NBC's make-believe correspondent really did keep getting worse. But this is too embarrassing to even talk about.

Chelsea Clinton did her second report for NBC's "Rock Center with Brian Williams" Wednesday night, and it was just as flawed as the first. The learning curve does not appear to have bent one degree in the direction of growth. This one-dimensional, under-reported, naive celebration of a charter school in Rhode Island was just as much of an empty-headed puff job as Clinton's first report on an after-school program in Little Rock. And before you take to your computer to send an email telling me how mean it is for me to criticize this 31-year-old woman who has been given educational and workplace advantages generally belonging to the elite 1 percent we have been hearing so much about in recent months, let me say my criticism is not primarily directed at Clinton, but rather at NBC News, It knows the difference between jounalism and the silly crap she is doing.

The Washington Post used to have the best media reporter in the country in Howard Kurtz. Now it was Erik Wemple writing what the paper calls "a reported opinion blog on news media. " I'll leave it to others to speculate on what that might suggest about the trajectory of the Post. But I was on Kurtz's "Reliable Sources" CNN media show Sunday, and Wemple didn't like what I said about the debut of Chelsea Clinton as a "special correspondent" for NBC News. You can read his post here . In it, he called me "childish and misanthropic" for my criticism of Clinton.

What ever happened to paying your dues? Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? Rags to riches? Those quintessential elements of the American dream have been replaced by a "child of" meritocracy in which your birth certificate means more than your resume. Chelsea Clinton has been added to NBC's stable of reporters, and the sound you hear is that of thousands of unemployed journalists weeping over their Starbucks applications. She is the latest in a growing list of children famous because their parents are famous becoming high profile broadcasters.

Since others like Mediaite and Eric Wemple in the Washington Post have commented on my denunciation of NBC News on CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday for hiring the woefully unqualified Chelsea Clinton as a special correspondent, I guess I better explain how I really feel. I was only warming up in denouncing this inside job among the elite one-percenters when I said: "At a time when young people who have played by the rules, who have gone to college, who have worked hard are camping out in American cities because the system has failed them in terms of providing jobs, to then take another member of that elite - the 1 percent - and give them one of those jobs is really a dispiriting message to the people in this country...

I'm coming back to work after a much-needed week away, and I am starting with a busy day Sunday that opens in Washington at CNN's "Reliable Sources. " Host Howard Kurtz has a very strong lineup this week. Here's his description from the CNN website: Another week and another debate hit our TV screens with just over two weeks to go until the Iowa caucus. We'll have “The Press Pool” host Julie Mason, National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru, and Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank to talk about the latest political headlines.

President Clinton wasn't the only proud father watching his child perform in the Washington Ballet production of "The Nutcracker" on Saturday.Manchester Town Manager Terry Short also brimmed with pride as his son, Nathan, 15, danced alongside Chelsea Clinton and the other professionals and students at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C.Nathan Short plays the role of "teen-age boy." Miss Clinton plays "the favorite aunt."Silver Run teen Lauren Jewell also appears in the ballet, playing one of the toy soldiers.

Remember when Chelsea Clinton and NBC News launched this misadventure featuring her as a "special correspondent" on "Rock Center" with a fanfare of hype and outright lies about what she and the journalistically-challenged NBC News were up to? Steve Capus, the recently deposed president of NBC News, said "it was as if she had been preparing her whole life" for the job. Clinton herself told "Rock Center" host Brian Williams as part of her first appearance that she took the TV job to lead a more "purposefully public life" highlighting people who are "making a difference.

NBC News used to be very good at handling major on-air change. The passing of the baton from Tom Brokaw to Brian Williams was textbook for how it should be done. But what NBC News President Steve Capus and his lieutenants are doing to Ann Curry as they let her twist in the wind at "Today"  is brutal. It's been called "death by a thousand leaks," and after the career she's had as a journalist, the 55-year-old Curry deserves better. Capus, you might recall, is the man who said he felt as if Chelsea Clinton had been preparing her whole life for her role as special correspondent at Williams' "Rock Center" newsmagazine.

In December, I called the hiring of Chelsea Clinton as a special correspondent for the newsmagazine "Rock Center" a "journalistically bankrupt decision by NBC News. " In February, after seeing Clinton's second report for the show, I wrote that Clinton "failed Journalism 101 -- again. " On CNN's  "Reliable Sources," I called the quote from NBC News President Steve Capus that it seemed to him as if Chelsea Clinton "had been preparing her whole life" for this job in journalism one of the most outrageous and disconnected-from-reality statements I have ever heard from the mouth of a news president in 30 years of reporting on the networks.

Chelsea Clinton did her second report for NBC's "Rock Center with Brian Williams" Wednesday night, and it was just as flawed as the first. The learning curve does not appear to have bent one degree in the direction of growth. This one-dimensional, under-reported, naive celebration of a charter school in Rhode Island was just as much of an empty-headed puff job as Clinton's first report on an after-school program in Little Rock. And before you take to your computer to send an email telling me how mean it is for me to criticize this 31-year-old woman who has been given educational and workplace advantages generally belonging to the elite 1 percent we have been hearing so much about in recent months, let me say my criticism is not primarily directed at Clinton, but rather at NBC News, It knows the difference between jounalism and the silly crap she is doing.

I was going to be nice and NOT write about the NBC newsmagazine "Rock Center" moving to 9 p.m. tonight after a failed run at 10 Mondays with Brian Williams at the helm. But then, NBC News sent out a press release calling special correspondent Chelsea Clinton and the rest of the newsmagazine team "the Cooperstown of NBC News. " Remember the quote about Clinton having "prepared all her life" for this job? More on that in a second. How failed has this Brian Williams ego trip been so far?

I'm coming back to work after a much-needed week away, and I am starting with a busy day Sunday that opens in Washington at CNN's "Reliable Sources. " Host Howard Kurtz has a very strong lineup this week. Here's his description from the CNN website: Another week and another debate hit our TV screens with just over two weeks to go until the Iowa caucus. We'll have “The Press Pool” host Julie Mason, National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru, and Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank to talk about the latest political headlines.