Back in 2009, Glenn Greenwald had a typically scathing attack on the ruling classes taking care of their own and their progeny and the cozy relationship that has developed between the media and the families of those they supposedly cover.
They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it’s really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from. There’s a virtually endless list of politically well-placed guests equally qualified to talk on such matters.
There is no reason to think that things have got any better since those sarcastic words were written and this article confirms that pessimism, saying that NBC News hired Chelsea Clinton for a salary of $600,000 per year.
Kamyl Bazbaz, a spokesperson for the 34-year-old Clinton, referred POLITICO to NBC News, which declined to discuss Clinton’s contract. “We don’t comment on details of existing contracts,” a network spokesperson said. “NBC News continues to enjoy a wonderful working relationship with Chelsea, and we are proud of her work.”
So what exactly was the nature of her work that was so valuable to NBC News? NBC was somewhat vague about their ‘special correspondent’.
As special correspondent, Clinton worked on service-related feature assignments for NBC’s “Rock Center with Brian Williams” until the show’s cancellation in June 2013. Clinton has since worked on packages for NBC Nightly News.
In that time, Clinton’s principal occupation has been the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, where she has been a major force in steering her parents’ charitable work in the final years of her mother’s tenure at the State Department, and since.
So NBC News spends a princely sum so that she can work on ‘packages’ but spend most of her time on her parents’ foundation.
Her work for NBC News was so low profile that in my journeys through the internet I have never seen her name associated with any news story in the past few years. But I was clearly looking in the wrong places. She apparently managed to snag an exclusive interview with the Geico gecko. (You can see the interview here.) That’s the kind of scoop that’s worth big bucks. They seem oblivious to the propriety of a so-called news program creating what is essentially a commercial for one of its advertisers.
The old adage that “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know that matters” seems very apropos here.
Chelsea Clinton did make good decisions in her choice of parents.
It should also be pointed out that Chelsea’s husband’s parents are both former Congresscritters. We might also include George W and Jeb as sons of former President Bush, who himself was the son of former Senator Prescott Bush.
Kind of a non-sequitur, but I really like what Ben Bernanke said about the concept of the meritocracy at a commencement speech at Princeton:
And the crazy part is that they have so much time to absorb the ideology of the “self-made” individual. I’m sure Chelsea Clinton is a very hard-working journalist compared to Glenn Greenwald, right?
Now let’s don’t jump to conclusions. Why, I’ll bet NBC pays high seven-figure salaries to every wet-behind-the-ears J-school graduate that knocks on their door. I’m sure such a distinguished news agency wouldn’t give special treatment to Chelsea just because of who her ‘rents are, right? Right?
Of course, as outrageous as Chelsea’s remuneration is, the nightly news anchor at NBC, Brian Williams, is paid some 10 million/year. Now that’s real outrage.
I don’t see why Jonah Goldberg is on the list. His mother, Lucienne, was hardly in the same category as the parents of the others, except for possibly being a sometime bedmate of Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman. The latter claim is highly dubious.
It’s worth remembering that when Michael Young invented the term “meritocracy” it meant “”merit is equated with intelligence-plus-effort, its possessors are identified at an early age and selected for appropriate intensive education, and there is an obsession with quantification, test-scoring, and qualifications”- nothing to do with parentage- and his book, The Rise of the Meritocracy, was imagined as being edited after its bloody overthrow. What seems to be taking place in the USA is the influence of a combination of plutocracy and political aristocracy and one of its defects is the absence of merit as a qualification for membership.
Back in the old days, the word for what we call “meritocracy” was “aristocracy.” It had the same features, and was defended using more or less the same language.
@moarscienceplz,
Actually, she is not a journalism graduate. She got her undergraduate degree in history and her graduate degrees in international relations.
Speaking of our beloved rulers -- and because it’s slightly less less OT here than in a cricket thread -- check out (via WaPo) the Sunlight Foundation’s new charts of US state legislators plotted by ideology and “effectiveness”.
From what little I’ve heard about Chelsea she has always been interested in charity and public service work. When NBC offered her a lucrative job and all Chelsea has to do is show up once in a while and avoid disgracing the name it would be foolish not to take it. Are you saying that when the offer was made she should have turned it down? Why? Arbitrarily turning down a lucrative and undemanding offer sounds to me like Calvinist self flagellation.
As far as I can tell Chelsea isn’t spending a lot of time claiming expertise, merit, or special insight. Unlike so many talking heads on the right she isn’t blaming the poor for being poor and claiming that if they were just a little bit more like her they would have prosperity poured out upon them. She doesn’t seem to push and polish her image or offer herself up as an example. Pretty rare for me to hear her name. If her intention was to become a media star she really needs to get a better agent and media consultant. As much as I dislike a lot of the so-called meritocracy Chelsea doesn’t seem to be particularly egregious example of someone claiming to have wealth by virtue of her superiority. If anything she seems a bit shy about her privilege.
Given that there are plenty of people who get paid millions to associate themselves with this or that corporation and a culture that celebrates celebrity for being celebrities I don’t see her as riding the gravy train very hard. Consider the Kardashians and Paris Hilton. If someone offers Chelsea $600,000 without demanding anything in particular … more power to her.
On the other hand if she starts offering herself up as a Horatio Alger story and singing “I did it my way” I may adopt a more negative view.
lorn @12:
I think you’re missing the point; look at the post title and the post’s content.
Basically, what is being said is that “meritocracy [is a] myth”; as evidence, this particular example of vicarious nepotism is offered.
(The post is not about Chelsea Clinton!)