Tonight: NBC Airs Sleazy Trumped-Up Case Against Local Sleazemonger

The teaser for tonight’s “Rock Center with Brian Williams” very special episode on Gawker Media is the most mindbogglingly dumb thing I’ve ever seen. It features reporter Jamie Gangel acting like a prosecutor, with all her notes bundled in her hand. She is also holding a pen? Just in case she wants to jot down some notes. After reading off a list of adjectives, to get “unapologetic” Gawker honcho Nick Denton to word-associate with them, or whatever, she then presents her case: “these blogs pay for salacious scoops, publish rumors, settle lawsuits when they have to, and if they get it wrong, they simply update.”

To illustrate that when things that are published are wrong, the blog posts are updated, they used a screenshot of a Gawker post written by Emily Gould. Who has not worked at Gawker since November of 2007. Surely they could have found something more damning or at least more recent? In any event, I’m assuming Gangel’s position is that when publications get things wrong… they should… not update them? She’s so gleefully going about trying to nail Gawker to the wall that she’s lost all track of what the words in her script mean.

You can watch this bit of buffoonery here; the episode airs tonight at 10 p.m., and it promises to be a laugh riot. If you can squeeze in a quick re-read of Reckless Disregard: Westmoreland v. CBS et al.; Sharon v. Time beforehand, it’ll serve you well to remember how TV news is so shoddily and shamelessly packaged.