On Saturday, an NBC sports reporter interviewing NASCAR driver Brandon Brown at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama after Brown scored his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series win stated in a video that the crowd was chanting “Let’s go, Brandon!” when in reality they were chanting “F*** Joe Biden.”
I’m pretty sure they’re not chanting “Let’s go Brandon” as the NBC reporter is telling us. What do you hear? #fjb pic.twitter.com/Ai6QU9uEZf
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 3, 2021
yeah that’s not what they’re yelling pic.twitter.com/gd5zTu1yAU
— Jessica O’Donnell (@heckyessica) October 3, 2021
NBC Sports wrote in its coverage of Brown’s win:
Brandon Brown earned his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series win when Saturday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway was called for darkness six laps from the scheduled distance.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Brown said on his team’s radio. “Wow! Just wow! Oh my God! This is a dream come true! This is a dream come true!”
Brown’s victory came in his 114th career series start.
Brown told NBCSN, “Oh my God, Dad, we did it!! Everything we hoped and dreamed for. Everything I wanted to do is take the trophy home to Mom and Dad.”
In late August, on an NBC News “Special Report” that was covering President Biden’s news conference, NBC News abruptly cut away from the news conference as soon as Biden started to take questions from the press.
Biden concluded his prepared statement by saying, “And I’ll keep you informed every day as we move forward. May God protect our troops and our diplomats who are serving in harm’s way. I’ll take a few questions. Darlene, from the Associated Press.”
Darlene Superville, White House reporter for The Associated Press, asked, “Mr. President: we’re nine days away from the August 31 deadline. Will you extend that deadline, or what is your thought process on extending the evacuation operation?”
NBC News’ Kate Snow nodded, possibly obeying an instruction given in her earphone, then cut in, “All right. We’ve been listening to President Biden with dual challenges on a Sunday talking about Tropical Storm Henri, all the preparations being made, also talking about Afghanistan. Let’s get right to Monica Alba, who’s at the White House.”
What are they worried about? As Biden begins to take questions, NBC News cuts away from the press conference. pic.twitter.com/F26hpjaVdg
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) August 22, 2021
In March, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt said “fairness is overrated.” He continued, “Before you run off and tweet that headline, let me explain a bit. The idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect the world we find ourselves in. That the sun sets in the west is a fact. Any contrary view does not deserve our time or attention.”
Holt also offered this: “Fact-checking is not a vendetta or attack. We all have a stake in us getting it right. … Regard for truth must regain a foothold in our society … “
In late April, the Pew Research Center compared the way the media compared Biden’s first days as president to the way they covered former President Trump over the same period. They wrote:
When it comes to the tone of coverage, both new administrations received more negative assessments than positive assessments of their activities. But while the percentage of Biden stories with an overall negative assessment (32%) modestly outnumbered the share with positive assessments (23%), stories with negative assessments of Trump outnumbered those with positive assessments by four-to-one (44% to 11%).