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Whoopsies. Someone is getting spanked over at the NBC News right now. While publishing the news that astronaut Neil Armstrong passed away today at age 82, the headline writer accidentally wrote "Neil Young" had died. Fret not, Neil Young is alive and well and probably off getting stoned somewhere. A bad error? Like Jeremy Lin's "chink in the armor" bad? Yes … but it is not difficult to see how errors like this occur in a 24/7 news cycle when every outlet is competitively rushing to be the first one to report breaking news. (Whether they're first to report right...

While I gave NBC News credit for breaking the news of astronaut Neil Armstrong’s death, someone at NBCNews.com screwed up big time with this headline, confusing Neil Armstrong and Neil Young: No, Neil Young was not an astronaut, and is not dead. The current version of the story has the following correction: “Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story included the wrong name in the headline.”

"We've been covering substantive issues this whole time," NBC "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams said on Comedy Central's "Daily Show" when pressed by host Jon Stewart when the media will start covering issues. "Wait until people get a bite out of his voting record," Williams warned. "Wait until more people understand the vote on TARP. Wait til we get down the road."

Mitt Romney might have thought it was eminently sensible in an NBC interview in London to repeat exactly what the TV networks had already reported on security at the London Olympics, namely, that there was room for concern. Romney succeeded only in demonstrating how unbelievably shameless and partisan our "objective" media can be. The networks and national newspapers aggressively declared Romney had committed a diplomatic fiasco overseas and repeated London tabloid headlines heckling Romney with insults, such as "Mitt the Twit." Here's what the networks said pre-Romney. On the July 24 "Good Morning America," ABC reporter Nick Schifrin lamented "an...

On Tuesday's NBC Today, campaign correspondent Peter Alexander attempted to spin bad behavior by reporters covering Mitt Romney's trip to Poland as a new controversy for the presidential campaign: "This morning, after reporters tried to shout questions to Romney while he left a plaza near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier....A campaign spokesman angrily intervened....The spokesman later called reporters to apologize." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] The report featured a clip of one female reporter screaming at Romney: "Governor Romney, do you feel that your gaffes have overshadowed your foreign trip?!" A campaign aide...

The major transitional element of today's London Olympics opening ceremony was a downtempo performance of adoptive sporting anthem "Abide With Me" by Scottish singer Emeli Sandé. The song and accompanying dance were a tribute to the victims of the 7/7 terror attacks in London that claimed 52 victims days after the 2012 Summer Olympic hosts were named. (It's also been suggested the performance was a memorial to the war dead.)

Last night, I noted how NBC News was swimming against historical trends in pushing a poll with a deeply partisan skew in its sample. The poll, produced in conjunction with The Wall Street Journal, had a D+11 sample, i.e. 46% of the sample identified as Democrat, 35% identified as Republican. In 2008, a very big year for Democrats, the electorate was D+7, 39% Democrat, 32% Republican. In fact, you have to go back nearly thirty years to find an election with such a partisan skew. This morning, on MSNBC's Morning Joe, NBC political director Chuck Todd admitted their poll had...

On Saturday's Today show, as Michael Isikoff filed a report on the drive to make people safer at movie theaters after the Aurora massacre, the NBC correspondent concluded his report by suggesting that, because "the powerful National Rifle Association has blocked any move for stricter gun laws," people will have to settle for "beefed-up security and greater vigilance," as if the NRA were preventing people from being safer. Toward the end of the report, Isikoff relayed the complaint of gun control activists that it is too easy to obtain certain types of guns. Isikoff: Nationally, there have been about 60...

Earlier in the segment, Alexander explained the role of the sons: "For a candidate who at times has struggled to connect, the campaign hopes the sons can also help explain some of their father's more idiosyncratic moments." In a preview of the interview on Thursday's Today, Alexander proclaimed: "For a candidate who's been called aloof, even awkward, the Romney boys help highlight their father's human side." NBC's Alexander to Romney Sons: 'Are You Out of Touch?' In one line of questioning in the wide-ranging interview, Alexander bizarrely jumped from asking about their missionary work to grilling them on why they...

NBCUniversal chieftain Steve Burke shocked insiders with his pick to lead the company’s far-flung news operations, passing over several veterans for the top job. Burke tapped NBCU business exec Patricia Fili-Krushel — who hasn’t been involved in a network news operation for years — as chairman of a newly created division that includes NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC. Burke’s decision to appoint Fili-Krushell, a longtime confidante, was described by network news insiders as “crazy” and “bizarre” given her lack of news credentials. “The timing sucks,” said one person close to NBC’s news division. “[Burke] didn’t go out and hire a...

REDMOND, Wash. — NBC News has acquired full control of msnbc.com and its digital network from Microsoft Corp. and is immediately rebranding the site as NBCNews.com. Many details of the arrangement remain to be worked out, and financial terms weren't disclosed. But NBC News President Steve Capus said the site — one of the news industry's earliest and most successful online operations — would become part of NBC News Digital, a new division led by Vivian Schiller, the former president and chief executive of National Public Radio. Schiller joined NBC News as chief digital officer last year.

NEW YORK (AP) — Ann Curry offered a tearful goodbye as co-host of NBC's "Today" show on Thursday, saying, "This is not as I expected to ever leave this couch." Her exit represents NBC's most visible response to the popular morning show's worst stretch in the ratings in nearly two decades. "Today" hadn't lost a single week since 1996, but this spring it was beaten four times by ABC's resurgent "Good Morning America."

At Media Bistro earlier today, the news about the combined average total audience for the Big Three TV networks' evening news was grim enough, coming in at a combined 20.15 million (NBC, 7.52 million; ABC, 7.14 million; CBS, 5.49 million). But the news about the audience in the key 25-54 demographic was, from what I can tell, either an all-time low or darned close to it. I couldn't find an example of one that was lower in searches through previous overall audience low points covered in prior posts at NewsBusters and or my home blog. Last week and other...

Lilia Luciano, a Miami-based NBC News correspondent, is no longer working for the network, TVNewser has learned. Luciano last reported for NBC News March 31. Until that point, she had been reporting mainly on the Trayvon Martin story. Sources tell TVNewser Luciano’s dismissal came after an investigation which also led to the firing of a seasoned NBC News producer over a similar, misleading edit. In a story for the “Today” show on March 20, Luciano used part of the George Zimmerman 911 call in which an entire phrase (italicized below) was taken from a later part of the conversation: Zimmerman:...

You won’t hear it anywhere else but here – insiders have told us WTVJ reporter Jeff Burnside was fired last Friday for allegedly editing the Trayvon Martin 911 tape, the same tape NBC aired on ‘Today’ in early April. Allegedly, his firing wasn’t announced internally and so far there is no information whether NBC made a conclusion if the edit was misleading on purpose or if it was an oversight.

I don’t know why George Zimmerman is trying to raise money for his defense. His lawyer should be filing a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against NBC and its parent company, GE, designed to cripple them and remove the network from the airways. Their actions in the editing of the 911 tape were malicious, designed to start race wars and get George Zimmerman killed. There is no other answer for their lies. They managed to get a “wanted dead or alive” bounty on George Zimmerman’s head by those that believed their purposeful, hate driven, race-baiting, money grubbing lies. They cannot get away...

Which is to say: sneaky. If you need to catch up on this story, click here. And then check out the latest from Tom Maguire, who has been all over this: NBC is busy taking down the evidence of its repeated usage of its bogus edit of the George Zimmerman 911 call… Yesterday the discovery by Les Jones of two similar bad edits at NBC 6 Miami for stories from March 19 and March 20 were widely broadcast by the InstaPundit. As of this writing, those stories have been “fixed” by the web editors to eliminate the troublesome passages (and...

Daily- and Instapudit are on about Breitbart’s post concerning the fired NBC editor. Back at Breitbart: The questions are only just beginning on Editgate. The release of the news of the firing just before the holiday weekend smacks of a cover-up; more than that, we know that the edit itself was not restricted to the Today show. Brian Williams and the brass at NBC News must provide answers. They are responsible for editorial output, not an unnamed producer. And they must be held responsible for an irresponsible and dangerous edit apparently deliberately designed to twist the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman story...

NBC News' decision to air an edited call from George Zimmerman to police in the moments before he shot Trayvon Martin was "a mistake and not a deliberate act to misrepresent the phone call," according to the president of the network's news division. The edit in question, which aired on the network's flagship "Today" morning show last week, made it appear that Zimmerman told police that Martin was black without being prompted, when, in fact, the full tape reveals that the neighborhood watch captain only did so when responding to a question posed by a dispatcher. Under growing public pressure...

NBC News President Insists Zimmerman Edit 'Not a Deliberate Act to Misrepresent' By Matthew Sheffield Created 04/08/2012 - 2:12am Following a series of anonymous leaks, NBC has released its first on-the-record statements regarding the internal investigation into its misleading audio clip of George Zimmerman's 9-1-1 call. According to NBC, the controversial clip, which appeared during its "Today" morning news show, was edited deliberately by the producer to fit within time constraints and not for some other reason. Speaking to Reuters, NBC News president Steve Capus asserted that the individual, who has been fired but whose name has not been disclosed,...