Anne Thompson Bamboozles Nightly News Viewers

On Monday, Nightly News aired a story about Yale quarterback Patrick Witt and the choice he has to make between attending the interview for a Rhodes Scholarship and playing in the Harvard-Yale game, both of which take place on Nov. 19. Make no mistake--the ONLY reason Nightly News aired this story is because the Versus network (owned by NBC Universal) will be televising the Harvard-Yale game. Neither Brian Williams nor Anne Thompson (who reported the story) care the slightest bit about Patrick Witt or the choice he has to make. They are just promoting an NBC property. On Monday, the Nightly News website asked viewers to weigh in on Witt's choice, and hundreds of people have already responded. What Brian Williams and Anne Thompson have actually done is tricked the Nightly News viewers into participating in a discussion about athletics vs. academics, when their real goal is to get us to watch a college football game on an NBC network. This "news story" was nothing more than a two-and-a-half minute commercial for the Harvard-Yale game on Versus. Please be vigilant. Every story that airs on Nightly News comes with some sort of hidden agenda. Every night, every viewer should be wondering exactly what it is that Brian and his producers and correspondents are promoting or selling. Because the fact is, they are always promoting something.