Chelsea Clinton Pimped Out to NBC News

Or maybe the head should've been NBC News Pimps Out Chelsea. 

Former First Daughter and Clinton media xenophobe Chelsea, joins NBC News as a "full-time special correspondent."  NYT's Bill Carter:

The appointment is immediate. Ms. Clinton will show up at the news division offices on Monday morning, said Steve Capus, president of NBC News, and will begin work on stories that NBC expects to use as part of its “Making a Difference” series, which runs on “NBC Nightly News.” . . . Mr. Capus said an intermediary contacted him in July with word that “she was kicking around what she wanted to do next.” Mr. Capus said he had met with Ms. Clinton and had a long conversation that began with a simple question. “I asked her: ‘What are you interested in doing?’” . . . “What we talked about was if she were to come on board that’s the kind of thing she would be interested in doing. We knew she wasn’t going to do the lead story. But having somebody who was going to do really captivating feature assignments for the ‘Making a Difference’ franchise really kind of synced up,” Mr. Capus said. 

Media guru Howard Kurtz reax on CNN Monday a.m.:  "It strikes me as a cheap gimmick. . . . I'm sure a lot of journalists would've liked that job."

Capus: “It’s not about Chelsea Clinton saying, ‘Here I am; I want to be a TV star.’ ” 

Ms. Clinton, who was not available for comment, said in a statement: “I hope telling stories through ‘Making a Difference’ — as in my academic work and nonprofit work — will help me to live my grandmother’s adage of ‘Life is not about what happens to you, but about what you do with what happens to you.’ ” 

Capus: “She wants to be in the field for the shoot and in the edit room for the edit.” . . . “We both want to see how this goes. It will be full time for the near-term future. But I hope it’s the beginning of a nice, long-term relationship.” 

Expect to see Chelsea on the ratings-challenged Brian Williams vehicle Rock Center.  Read the NBC press release.


Carter quotes an anonymous source saying Chelsea's donating all the NBC dough to the Clinton Foundation and DC's George Washington University Hospital.

NBC has two other political daughters on its payrolls:  Jenna Bush Hager and Meghan McCain.