Critics are hammering NBC for using its news affiliates to do publicity for its corporate parent company Comcast.
MSNBC, the cable arm of NBC, aired a segment Friday promoting “Comcast Cares Day,” a volunteer effort put on by Comcast over the weekend.
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” anchor Nicolle Wallace introduced the segment saying, “Tomorrow marks a big event here as we celebrate Comcast Cares Day, now in its 17th year. It is believed to be the nation’s largest single day corporate volunteer event.”
Comcast Senior Executive Vice President David Cohen appeared on the show to also promote the effort, along with Al Sharpton, an MSNBC host.
“This is, I think, the way we can bring the world to where Mandela wanted us, where corporations don’t become expansive and influential just for personal wealth but for a purpose,” said Sharpton.
This is creepy & humiliating: MSNBC devotes almost 8 minutes of airtime on @Morning_Joe to heralding the humanitarianism of its corporate owner Comcast, complete with Comcast executives touting themselves under the chyron “COMAST CARES DAY” https://t.co/J9VoR0KYbg
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 22, 2018
Journalist Glenn Greenwald on Twitter called the segment “creepy and humiliating.”
Adam Johnson, who writes for the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, tweeted, “Comcast property MSNBC having its nominally independent analysts and hosts doing a cultish Comcast commercial was bad enough but Al Sharpton claiming Comcast was carrying on the work of Nelson Mandela was uh something else.”
Some local NBC affiliates also covered the event, including NBC4 in Los Angeles.
The criticism comes just weeks after the right-leaning Sinclair company drew its own scrutiny after anchors at many of the stations it owns across the country were required to read a promotional script that warned of media bias and “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country.”
The Washington Examiner requested a comment Monday from an NBC spokesperson.
