Is Jim Miklaszewski A Buckraker?
By Nicole Belle Saturday Jul 14, 2007 5:58pm
So I'm reading Jamison Foser's usual excellent column at Media Matters discussing why John Edwards' $400 haircut is always in the news, and I come upon this really interesting nugget. According to the Providence Journal's Tom Mooney, apparently, NBC Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski was paid $30,000 to give a speech for the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, a speech in which he bashed Edwards for the haircut incident. Let's leave aside Miklaszewski's Bushnik 'the enemy is patient and America has a short attention span' wingnut rhetoric, and focus on a very specific practice going on here known in the industry as 'buckraking'.
Buckraking is the practice whereby a journalist is paid to speak to a business or right-wing group for large sums of money, and buckraking is a serious offense (it's also apparently against NBC's corporate policy). [..]
Did Miklaszewski break company policy by accepting this speaking fee? It certainly would seem he did (he's listed as a speaker for hire on speaker provider Barber and Associates' web site). Chris Matthews fell into a bit of hot water last year for apparently accepting speaking fees from special interest corporate groups, and Rick Kaplan, then MSNBC's President, made it clear that the policy for news anchors at NBC was that buckraking would result in firing.
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Oh yeaaaaa.........
that word rolls of my tounge and leaves a gritty taste in my mouth.
Gee, maybe they'll hold a hearing in congress and send a subpoena to talk about it. Then Jim Miklaszewski can refuse to appear and then...nothing will happen.
Cokie Roberts
Of course. The entire crew of 'jouralists', 'reporters', at the Neo Con Brodcastomg company, minus Keith Oberman, are repiglicans. All of them. That's been the plan of Jack Welsh of course. The entire repiglican/ corporate media starting with this cunt fart Miklaszewski’, Tim 'my depends are always full' Russert, Chris "mr aqua velva man' Matthews, "Miss" Brian "i am not a corporate slut' Williams, and all the rest of them, should be charged, tried, and convicted for criminal fraud against the American people and frogged marched out of their corporate studios right into jail.
$30,000 speaking fee, eh?
Humm, that's SEVENTY-FIVE (75) - $400 haircuts for a half hour rant about someone getting $400 Haircuts... Too funny!
Jim Miklaszewski, as an employee of NBC, is an employee of GE. GE's code of conduct covers all companies owned by GE. It is called "The Spirit and Letter", and takes a particularly dim view of conflicts of interest. It also prohibits the use of company resources for personal gain. He can be fired for the first offense. NBC has a corporate problem with their staff propagandists using company resources for personal gain. Last week it was Tweety using NBC to pimp for Ann Coulter - and thereby helping his own relationship with his publisher, now it's this guy. Aside from the shame being a propaganda outlet, it looks like NBC is just doesn't get it (as far as enforcing their ethical standards and obligations goes). Their failures just further degrade what little credibility they have left (were it not for Olbermann, they would have none).
I might suggest a campaign to contact the GE Corporate Ombudsman with complaints, providing links to this C&L thread. I am told that they take this kind of ethical breach very seriously.
Contact Info:
GE Corporate Ombudsperson at 800-227-5003
or
ombudsperson@corporate.ge.com
If I was John Edwards, I would shave my head and say, "There, fuckers.
Now about this goddamned war for profit..."
But I'm not John Edwards.
[deleted--please consult the commenting policy. Posts made with the intent to insult or incite a flame war are subject to editing or deletion. If you have a point, express it civilly.]
How much does Jim Miklaszewski pay for his haircut and dye job?
Eff him, his name is too hard to pronounce anyway. Perhaps he should go under a stage name, something jazzy, like Gannon.
M. Ross @ 9:
I'm a Commie!
He's a Commie!
She's a Commie!
We're all Commies!
Wouldn't you like to be a Commie too!
I'm sorry. I meant wouldn't you like to be an intellectually dishonest bipolar Commie off his meds too?
Let's get the conversation back up off the floor, please.
SteveK @ 6:
I was thinking the same thing. In fact, a TV personality with a million-dollar salary makes about $2,750/day, or $114 for every hour they exist, much less work. Scale appropriately.
$30,000 seems like raking in the bucks to me. Mr. Micklezooski (phonetically) should be fired. But I bet he won't be.
Tim Russert (Not!) @ 10:
Your a mean, mean man.
Jim's hair is just the right color for being freshly plucked from his rectum. Wrecked him? Darn near killed him.
Off topic, but Cindy Sheehan, just now on CNN told Pelosi to put impeachment on the table or she's going to run against her.
So what ya think 5 to 25 years before we self destruct under a mountain of debt, disease and corruption?
I was thinking months.
Doesn't that seem like a lot of money for some fairly modest size community? I suppose there are lot of Defense Contractors in the area but it still seems like a lot of money for a fairly modest Reporter. This wouldn't be some kind of Payoff would it?
Ms Belle-
Speaking of Media Matters:
"Malveaux then aired a clip of Bush asserting: "The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th." Malveaux reported Bush's assertion without challenge."
She did not need to challenge the statement because it is 100% accurate. It is the Bush directed cabal bombing innocent people in Iraq, so there is no need for any further comment - in this case. The parsing of words from these folks is played as an art form in deception - if the totally repugnant can rise to the level of art.
"Buckraking is the practice whereby a journalist is paid to speak to a business or right-wing group for large sums of ... "
So what is it if a journalist speaks to a left wing group?
Bic @ 8:
Ain't that the fucking truth?
All this attention paid to a goddamned haircut, and the subsequent bloviating that if you pay 400 for a haircut, then why are you advocating for the poor, all the while, speaking out of the other side of your mouth that baby jeebus is rewarding the rich.
Piss on all of them.
Sorry, I try to be civil and evenhanded when I post, but stupid shit like this really gets my goat.
This just in: DOJ has released a simple qualifying questionnaire to see whether the law applies to you or not:
1. A you a billionaire or at least a multi-miliionaire?
2. Are you a registered Republican who always votes a straight GOP ticket?
3. List how much money, if any, you have donated to the GOP since the year 2000. Make similar list for Donations to the Democratic party.
4. Have you ever disagreed with President Bush about the Iraq War? About anything else?
5. What religious affiliation are you?
To qualify as being ABOVE THE LAW, your answers should have been the following:
1. Yes, many times over (only 1 million or less disqualifies)
2. Yes (mixed voting or Democrat disqualifies)
3. Best answer: the maximum amount, every year. Anything less than 90% GOP disqualifies.
4. NO. (Any disagreement disqualifies).
5. Conservative Protestant Christian (even better: Christian Reconstructionist). Progressive Christian disqualifies. Catholic is considered borderline and will be weighed against the other answers.
Notice how EVERY wingnut you've had on C&L today--from Kagan to Kristol to Graham to this guy--look like the kind of guy who absolutely got the crap beat out of them at every turn while growing up? Smirking loser-wimps all.
Commie sympathizers support Commies- like Communist China. I'll bet those trolls that come here calling us Commies are the real ones support the Commies:
I'll bet they shop at Wal Mart, which gets a lot of its goods from............ China.
And of course, they support Bush's war. I mean real anti Commies would, wouldn't they? But did they know Bush is borrowing money from China to pay for his war? Did they know that China, if they so desired, could wreck the US economy by simply demanding payment for the loans? So Bush and his supporters have no problem putting this country in debt to a Commie nation, no problem at all.
Gee, for $30,000 Bob Allen could have blown 1500 cops! It would also buy a lot of pampers.
Horst got it right:
“The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th.”
[Deleted]
Remember Sept 11th!
[Deleted. Take the 9/11 conspiracy theories to a site that supports the same. Thank you for understanding as any adult would-Sitemonitor]
Miklaszewski's a shill for the economic elite. He will do anything for a check
So let me get this straight, the Providence Chamber of Commerce paid this hack 30 grand to stand up and tell them some bullshit they could hear for free on Fux Snooze on any given night. And these chamber of Commerce schmucks are "business leaders"? - OH MY FUCKING GOD!!
Speaking fees and book deals are how the press has been bought off. Or at least one of the ways. Armstrong Williams is just a pimple on the surface -- there are many more, I'm sure.
Nicole...The article didn't say Mik blasted him for the haircut. He called him a "loser" for "trying to defend the haircut".
I agree. F*ck the haircut. Don't respond. Who gives a sh*t.
The answer is yes.The next question is"when do they fire him?
And the next one is:When do they fire Tweety,the hard ass?
iI haven`t watched more than 1hr. of TV in over a week.Zero News. This is the best I felt in a year.We should all throw away the tv s. I think tv brings me down.I get alot of reading dome and my mind stays sharper.
Is Miklaszewski still on the air? If he is, he shouldn't be!
These guys can make a nice living speaking at those rates to noncorporate or non special interest groups. Forty years ago Martin Agronsky of CBS spoke to my small synagogue or was it the local small college for a generous speaking fee giving the "inside scoop" to the locals and making them feel bigtime. I would say today with the internet and what we know about the MSM and their minions, I would not pay to see the equivalent of Agronsky, say an Andrea Mitchell or Tom Friedman, but there are plenty of small towns in the middle of the country that will put out alot for these kinds of people.
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