(LUCAS JACKSON/REUTERS) - Chelsea Clinton speaks during a recent panel discussion at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.
NBC News has carved another face in its “Mount Rushmore” of correspondents: former first daughter and the country’s Most Artful Media Dodger, Chelsea Clinton.
Clinton will be a special correspondent for “Rock Center With Brian Williams” and “NBC Nightly News.” (The Mount Rushmore gag was from “Rock Center” exec producer Rome Hartman, describing NBC News’s correspondents’ stable during a recent news conference.)
More from Lisa de Moraes
Pulitzer Prize winner, Peabody recipient, Medal of Freedom honoree -- Lisa de Moraes is none of these, but she is an authority on the bad direction, over-acting, and muddled plot lines being played out in the TV industry's executive suites.
Clinton will be charged with profiling organizations and individuals “who represent the best of what works in the United States and around the world, frequently emphasizing stories about everyday people doing extraordinary things” for NBC News’s “Making a Difference” segments, the network news operation announced Monday.
“Chelsea is a remarkable woman who will be a great addition to NBC News,” said division President Steve Capus, adding how proud NBC News suits are that she will be taking her “considerable, unique talents and dedication to NBC News.”
Clinton, for her part, said the gig will enable her to live her grandmother’s adage: “Life is not what happens to you, but about what you do with what happens to you.”
What has happened to Clinton is that she has joined a proud tradition of political children hired by NBC News, reaching way back to the days of JFK/RFK/Ted Kennedy niece Maria Shriver. More recently, that roster includes George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna Bush Hager, who works as a correspondent for NBC’s “Today,” and Sen. John McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain, who is a contributor at MSNBC.
Which, in one of those incredible coincidences, is our fantasy casting for the next edition of “Dancing With the Stars.”
Yes, daughters of former presidents and presidential hopefuls are the Drew Barrymores of New York TV network news divisions — the Willow Smiths of Washington.
Anyway, the title “special correspondent” puts Clinton in the same category as Ted Koppel and Meredith Vieira on “Rock Center.”
Explained Capus: “Given her vast experiences, it’s as though Chelsea has been preparing for this opportunity her entire life.”
And by “preparing for this opportunity her entire life,” Capus meant: “successfully dodging the media her whole life.” Because she is the child of Bill and Hillary Clinton, of course, the press was supposed to keeps its hands off Chelsea as she was growing up, so she could live her life as privately as possible.
Penn State vs. Giffords
Monday night NBC News took on ABC News’s interview with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) with an interview of its own: Bob Costas talked with former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who in the interview admitted to “showering and horsing around with young boys” but insisted that he is “innocent of those [sexual abuse] charges.”
Joe Paterno’s onetime defensive coordinator — and founder of a charity to help at-risk youth — has been charged with 40 counts of sexually abusing eight boys, dating back to 1994. A grand jury report detailed claims of alleged sexual encounters with young boys in Sandusky’s house, in hotels and in Penn State locker rooms.
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