In a brief AP story written by Jenna Fryer and published a few places on the web (mainly sports sites and TV news pages like this ABC affiliate covering the Washington, D.C. area), comes the news that "Dateline NBC" tried to "profile" NASCAR fans who NBC guessed might be guilty of "profiling" Arabs. Here's part of Fryer's report...NASCAR said it was "outrageous" that "Dateline NBC" targeted one of its race tracks last weekend for a possible segment on anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States. NASCAR said NBC confirmed it was sending Muslim-looking men to a race, along with a camera crew to film fans' reactions. The NBC crew was "apparently on site in Martinsville, Va., walked around and no one bothered them," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Wednesday.
"It is outrageous that a news organization of NBC's stature would stoop to the level of going out to create news instead of reporting news," Poston said. "Any legitimate journalist in America should be embarrassed by this stunt. The obvious intent by NBC was to evoke reaction, and we are confident our fans won't take the bait," he said.
NASCAR is in the final year of a broadcasting agreement with NBC Sports...
Remember the now infamous "Dateline NBC" program of the early 90's which featured a riveting report about fuel tanks blowing up on GM pickup trucks -- a report whose "findings" were spectacularly dramatized by video of the tanks exploding on impact? If so, you'll remember how GM was tipped off, hired private eyes who scoured 22 junkyards for a whole day and used the gathered evidence to prove that "Dateline" had lied about nearly every charge, not the least of which was a crash sequence that had been the fiery climax to the show. Indeed, more than lying, "Dateline" crews had set up the whole shebang, using implanted rockets to ignite the resultant truck explosions.But that was then and this is now. And apparently, NBC is still more about making its own "news" which, of course will serve its own biases and political agenda rather than reporting on the things that are.
