August 5, 2018

Kelly O'Donnell has been on the White House beat for NBC News and MSNBC for a number of years, covering both GWB and Obama before Trump. Usually, it's a stepping stone to a higher profile gig (like David Gregory, who parlayed it into an anchor position), but O'Donnell appears to be content being part of the press pool.

It's not a particularly glamorous position, as her tweets often show.

But maybe it's the lowered expectations that makes her so unwilling to understand how her perception of her job is actually hurting the nation.

Seriously? "Both sides hate us, so we must be doing something right." is the stupidest understanding of the role the Fourth Estate plays towards protecting democracy.

Let's be clear. Screaming "fake news" is NOT the equivalent of asking why every moment of every rally must pre-empt any other programming. I've already explained how these rallies are less than newsworthy, serving as little more than a way to keep Donald Trump distracted from Mueller and away from Twitter lest he start another trade war or conflict with a nuclear power.

But O'Donnell can't even provide that little bit of context.

Right. We'll wait for O'Donnell to provide some evidence of the non-stop coverage of Obama rallies. Hell, how about even five minutes of a Hillary Clinton rally in the middle of telling the viewership how very unpopular Clinton was? Waiting...

Well, isn't that convenient? She can brush off the criticism by saying she's not in charge of what makes it on air. So it's just all this anger from both the right and left out of context entirely.

I'll make this easier for O'Donnell: The left is angry because WE WANT YOU TO DO YOUR JOB. Show us what's newsworthy, provide facts and put it into context. That's literally it. Don't just provide endless free campaign ads for someone who holds you and the country in contempt, endangers both your livelihood and potentially, your lives, and has a long documented history of lies, falsehoods and divisive rhetoric that hurts people.

The right is angry, because they DON'T want facts. They want their biases confirmed. They don't want you to do your job.

These are not equivalent complaints. But don't expect O'Donnell to grasp that.

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