MSNBC’s Morales named Today National Correspondent
NBC announced this morning that Natalie Morales had been named the National Correspondent for the Today Show.
Natalie Morales has been named National Correspondent for NBC News’ “Today,” effective immediately. The announcement was made today by NBC News President Steve Capus. Morales will report for America’s top-rated morning news program, and have a regular role in the third hour of “Today.”
Morales has been a frequent contributor to “Today” over the past few years. Prior to joining “Today,” she was an anchor and correspondent at MSNBC since March 2002. She’s reported on numerous stories for “Today” and MSNBC, ranging from the 2002 and 2005 Olympic Games; Hurricane Katrina and the recovery efforts; the Tsunami disaster; the death of Pope John Paul II; the Battle for White House in 2004; the crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania on September 11th and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“For the third time in as many weeks, we find ourselves with another terrific announcement at ‘Today,’” said Capus. “Natalie is a dedicated journalist and first-rate broadcaster. For years, she’s been an important part of the program’s extended family, and this just formalizes her role. I couldn’t be happier about making it official.”
Two things:
1) Wasn’t Melissa Stark the Today Show’s National Correspondent or some similar title? What happens to Stark now? Stark has been making more and more appearances on MSNBC as of late in a fill in role.
UPDATE: Yup. Stark was National Correspondent at one point.
2) I’m not knocking Morales because she didn’t write this release but note the resume padding. Reporting on the death of Pope John Paul II? The 2004 Campaign? Come on. The 2004 campaign was primarily handled on MSNBC by Chris Jansing, David Shuster, and Chris Mathews. NBC’s Campbell Brown, David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell, and Norah O’Donnell carried the water on NBC. Jansing was the one in Rome for five weeks for the death of Pope John Paul II and the installation of Pope Benedict XVI. Everyone knows that. Morales has done plenty of other things for Today and MSNBC. I don’t see why NBC’s PR deprartment stretched credibility by including Morales’ peripheral participation in stories that other NBC/MSNBC journalists owned.
UPDATE: Jossip thinks this is all about damage control…
She was slotted to take over for Katie Couric when the bubbly, gravitas-less, self-absorbed, babbling host was snatched up by CBS. But, sadly for Natalie Morales, it was Meredith Vieira who landed that role.
Now NBC News President Steve Capus is sopping up Morales’ tears with a fat, fancy title. She’s been been named “National Correspondent for NBC News’ Today.” This title is effective immediately, and carries a hefty responsibility. Instead of randomly popping in and out as morning fodder, Morales will now have a purpose and a “regular role in the third hour of Today.”
Natalie isn’t that good of an interviewer. She tends to ask a question then answer it or ask another one before said question has been responded to. Which makes her very painful to watch.
Comment by Terance — April 19, 2006 @ 2:02 pm
And what network doesn’t? If you’re going to call that then make sure you call all other bios. BTW, she did participate in the 2004 election.
Comment by bravesfan — April 19, 2006 @ 5:15 pm
NBC has a history of padding resumes on some of its star talent that are short on real experience. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen them do it but I just had to call BS on this one because it was so glaringly obvious.
Morales’ participation in the 2004 elections was cursory and superficial at best. Contrast that with her Katrina coverage which was far more substantial and included actual location reporting. Ditto for the Olympics in Greece and Italy. They should have stuck with those instead of trying to make her resume look more substantial by tossing in everything but the kitchen sink.
Comment by Spud — April 19, 2006 @ 5:36 pm
I think you called this one because you had an agenda. Let’s not kid ourselves here. The only thing in there that is incorrect is the coverage of the pope. Other than that, whether talent has minimal or a lot of involvement in coverage of a story, it always gets put in so i wouldn’t say that they tried to make it “look more substantial by tossing in everything but the kitchen sink.” HOw often has Chris Jansing subbed on Weekend Today yet I still see that in her bio and same for Alex WItt covering the 2000 election. Exactly how much participation did she have in that?
Comment by bravesfan — April 19, 2006 @ 7:16 pm
I called this one because NBC made it public. I have noticed Jansing’s way out of date bio page (with corresponding way out of date picture). I can’t recall how much participation Witt had in the 2000 elections. I know Banfield and Jansing were on the road at least part of the time. But I can’t remember anything about Witt. I did see Witt on the road covering Schwarzenegger’s campaign for Governer for a week or so.
But all this is beside the point because neither Jansing’s bio or Witt’s “bio” has been used in an NBC release. Morales’ was. That’s the difference. If NBC had issued a release for Jansing calling her a substitute anchor on Weekend Today and the Sunday version of the NBC Nightly News when we all know she hasn’t done either in years, and used that information to sort of justify Jansing’s assignment (the way NBC was padding Morales’ bio to justify her being named National Correspondent) I would have jumped all over it. I jumped all over them for using a 7 year old picture of Jansing for a release on The Ethical Edge.
Furthermore dismissing my argument by saying that only the Pope thing was wrong is like arguing that someone is only a little bit pregnant. Either you’re pregnant or you’re not. Similarly either a bio is padded or it is not. End of story.
Comment by Spud — April 19, 2006 @ 7:30 pm
Riiiiigggghhhhttt. Well next time someone’s bio is released I look foward to seeing you dissect it as you do so well with certain people.
Comment by bravesfan — April 19, 2006 @ 7:41 pm
The next time a network uses an unnecessarily padded bio to justify something, I will jump on it.
However I will not be trolling every bio page on every news site seeking out incorrect bios to just point them out. No. They have to be tied to some specific network action (press release, etc) before I’ll do anything.
Comment by Spud — April 19, 2006 @ 7:47 pm
That’s because I think it is-at least in part. Ive read your posts on that MSN board and I’ve seen this exact topic come up. I like this blog and accept it for what it is but “knowing” the blogger, its a little hard to believe that there isn’t a bias in certain posts.
Comment by bravesfan — April 19, 2006 @ 7:52 pm
whoops, too bad you changed that message.
Comment by bravesfan — April 19, 2006 @ 7:53 pm
You raise a fair point. However I have taken pains to keep my off blog opinions off the blog because they don’t belong here. When I was writing this up, what you mentioned did enter my mind and I almost decided against writing that up for reasons you mentioned. But I decided it was a fair argument to make irrespective of my personal opinions.
Of course all blog entries contain a certain point of view. I’m not naive to the point of not being aware that my own opinions influence what I write to some extent. But my goal has always been to stick to the issues and not get a blog entry bogged down in personal opinions that can’t be adequately justified from a factual basis. Of course you could argue that even factual arguments can be tainted by biases and there is some truth to that. Ultimately I try to muddle my way through it all and if I screw up I try to learn from that mistake and not repeat it. That’s the best I can hope for.
As far as this story goes, I think NBC had more than enough of Morales’ history to use to justify her promotion to National Correspondent that it didn’t need to go into areas that she played minor roles in to pad her resume. Everyone at MSNBC reported on the elections in some way or another and everyone reported on the death of Pope John Paul II. But when a casual observer reads that so and so reported on either of those two events they’re going to think that they played a significant role in the story because that’s how resumes and bios work. That’s what I find objectionable in this case because it’s misleading.
As far as my editing goes, it’s a problem. I admit it. I like to refine what I write to make it most accurately reflect my opinion. If it means turning 180 degrees and saying the complete opposite, then I’ll issue a correction or an “UPDATE”. But if it’s just refining, then I probably won’t. Maybe I should.
Comment by Spud — April 19, 2006 @ 9:04 pm
Fair enough. Like I said I do like the blog but I have read the msn board for a while and am fairly comfortable knowing the opinions of frequent posters so I think it is natural for me to feel like there may be a bias present in certain posts whether the bias is for or against someone. It is rare though spud as I think you are pretty good at balancing the equation so to speak.
Comment by bravesfan — April 19, 2006 @ 9:11 pm