You may want to sit down for this. NBC News this weekend edited a viral video of a beleaguered California business owner to remove the parts that show the rank hypocrisy of Los Angeles city officials and their cronies — including NBC itself.
Pineapple Hill Saloon & Grill owner Angela Marsden went viral this weekend with a video showing she has been forced to close her outdoor seating area even as an entertainment company has been given a carveout to set up a catering facility directly across from her restaurant.
As it turns out, the catering area has been set up in support of a crew filming the NBC comedy Good Girls, according to the New York Times. NBC does not want you to know this.
“Everything I own is being taken away from me,” Marsden says in the viral video. “And people wonder why I’m protesting and why I have had enough.”
The Los Angeles-based business owner adds, “My staff cannot survive.”
In the video, Marsden shows her restaurant’s pandemic-compliant outdoor seating area, which reportedly cost her a boatload to set up. City officials have ordered her to close it for no particularly good scientific reason. The camera then pans directly across the street to show where catering tents and tables have been set up for the NBC comedy show, which has been given special permission by the city that exempts it from the latest round of lockdown rules.
Bar owner in Los Angeles CA is livid to see that mayor Garcetti has approved an outdoor dining area for a movie company directly across from her outdoor dining area (which was shut down) pic.twitter.com/jkUP2CWg35
— Jake Coco ????? (@jakecoco) December 4, 2020
Yet, when NBC covered the restaurateur’s story this weekend, it cut out all the parts showing the catering facility that has been set up across the street from the Pineapple Hill Saloon & Grill. The network’s weekend coverage just showed Marsden kvetching about having to close her outdoor seating area.
The NBC newscast then included a bit of high-horse moralizing from correspondent Meagan Fitzgerald, who is shown saying, “Businesses and livelihoods hit hard. But the toughest toll of all is losing loved ones.”
Conspicuously absent from NBC’s weekend coverage of Marsden’s rant, aside from any mention of the competing outdoor catering facility, is the fact that NBC is the chief benefactor of this outrageous pandemic double-standard.
Later, on Monday, NBC took another crack at Marsden’s story, this time including the fact that her restaurant is being closed down even though another group has been allowed to set up shop across the street. But even then, the peacock network, for a second time, neglected to mention its own involvement.
“The rules met with pushback from some small business owners,” says NBC correspondent Miguel Almaguer. “Angela Marsden owns a restaurant in Sherman Oaks, California. Her post about a movie company setting up a dining area just feet from her outdoor space, where she’s not allowed to serve, going viral.”
Almaguer adds in a none-too-subtle note, “Still, for those on the pandemic’s front lines, the mandates are crucial.
Amazing. NBC is fully supportive of the new round of lockdown rules, as long as NBC doesn’t have to follow them.
