Desperate NBC Digs up Dirt on McConnell’s Great-Great-Grandfather

What is an “unbiased” and “objective” news organization supposed to do when a politician takes a position with which they disagree?

Wait. How can it even disagree with a position if it’s unbiased?

Maybe this will help: I’m talking about the notoriously leftist establishment outlet NBC. Now that we are clear, back to the original question.

What is NBC supposed to do when they don’t like Mitch McConnell‘s positions?

If you are a normal news outlet attempting to cloak yourself in the protection of unbiased reporting, you just report it. But not NBC. 

The network is so desperate to smear anyone that dare deviate from leftist groupthink that they will turn to the classic source of smoking guns, Ancestry.com.

That’s not a misprint.

Corky Siemaszko, an NBC journalist, was so put out that McConnell opposed reparations that he searched the U.S. census records and Ancestry.com to accomplish the journalistic feat of reporting that McConnell’s great-great-grandfather owned slaves.

Thanks for your putting your professional curiosity on display, Corky, but that is an embarrassing reach.

Unless McConnell has ever claimed to come from a long line of people who have never owned slaves, this bit of “journalism” is absurd.

“Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said recently he opposes paying government reparations to the descendants of American slaves, has a family history deeply entwined in the issue: Two of his great-great-grandfathers were slave owners, U.S. census records show,” Siemaszko wrote.

To steal a line from Princess Bride, I don’t think “deeply intertwined” means what Corky thinks it means.

I couldn’t even tell you my great-great-grandfather’s name. And I’m pretty sure I don’t vote on issues because of anything he thinks. Even my dad and I often disagree about the direction of the country.

But leave it to Corky’s inquiring mind to go dig up the fact that my long-lost 14th cousin owned a store and underpaid his employees. My opposition to raising of the minimum wage is probably due to my “deeply intertwined” family history with bad employment policies.

NBC’s absurd non-journalism did not go unnoticed.

Byron York, chief political correspondent at the Washington Examiner, astutely asked in a tweet, “Is NBC News going to research the great-great-grandparents, and their activities between 1850-1860, of all senators, or just Mitch McConnell? Is this the first in a series?”

Byron York

✔@ByronYork

Is NBC News going to research the great-great-grandparents, and their activities between 1850-1860, of all senators, or just Mitch McConnell? Is this the first in a series? http://ow.ly/4OVS50uWqAL 

7,415

6:02 PM - Jul 9, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

3,340 people are talking about this

And York wasn’t the only one.

“Even given the derangement gripping our current politics it’s still stunning to see a major news outlet write up something like this,” tweeted Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

Marco Rubio

✔@marcorubio

Even given the derangement gripping our current politics it’s still stunning to see a major news outlet write up something like this. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mitch-mcconnell-ancestors-slave-owners-alabama-1800s-census-n1027511 … via @nbcnews

1,402

7:08 AM - Jul 9, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Mitch McConnell, who opposes reparations, is descended from two slave owners

McConnell has opposed paying reparations to descendants of slaves, though census records show his family, like many others, benefited from their labor.

nbcnews.com

1,151 people are talking about this

It’s one thing for an idiot to have a bad idea, but for this to see the light of day, NBC’s editorial staff and a supervisor had to sign off on Corky’s pitch and actually go through with this sorry excuse of an article.

Maybe NBC doesn’t mind being “deeply intertwined” with political pandering posing as professional reporting, but they should at at least lay all their cards on the table and admit what they’re doing.