President Bush’s daughter, Jenna (Bush) Hager, has been hired as a “special correspondent” for NBC’s Today show (my money would have been on Meghan McCain). According to the Associated Press’s David Bauder:
A first television job on Today is, in her father’s world, sort of like a run for president as a first attempt at elective office.
A comparison that works, I guess, as long as the word “news” isn’t in there (as in, “a first television news job on Today…”).
Hager “will contribute stories about once a month on issues like education.” Today’s executive producer, Jim Bell, tells Bauder that “he didn’t consider the job as a down payment for a future interview with her father” (though surely we’ll see Jenna “interviewing” her dad at some point— or, at least, her mom) nor did “attacks on NBC News by conservatives for the liberal bent of MSNBC” have anything to do with Bush’s new gig.
Did Jenna use a fake news id to get the job? She's written 2 books--more than her father has read--but this is disheartening for people working their way up the ladder to see someone like her get such a prestigious first job working in the same bureau where Brokaw & Chancellor once roamed.
#1 Posted by sheldon toplitt, CJR on Mon 31 Aug 2009 at 12:33 PM