Really, can it get any worse? Can once-proud media organizations sully themselves any more? Andrea “NBC News, Washington” Mitchell married to Alan Greenspan. Christiane Amanpour married to former Clinton Administration mouthpiece Jamie Rubin.  Speaking of Clinton hacks, James Carville and Paul Begala, shacking up together at CNN. And now this. From Newsbusters:

To highlight the announcement that Bianna Golodryga had been named co-anchor of the weekend Good Morning America, ABC blurred the lines of journalism on Sunday and brought on the host’s fiancee, Barack Obama’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag.

In a fawning piece on Golodryga’s life story, an onscreen graphic identified Orszag only as the journalist’s fiancee. At the end of the segment, the Democratic official strode onto the set, surprising the host. Only then, almost as an aside, did co-anchor Bill Weir explain, “…For those who may not know, Bianna’s fiance is in President Obama’s cabinet.”

What a surprise! A news anchor engaged to an Obama Administration official.  And one with, shall we say, a Lothario-like past. Pillow talk — what pillow talk? We’re all professionals here!

In the old days, such relationships were grounds for firing, not a promotion. But the demoralized ABC News obviously no longer cares about propriety, integrity or anything else. Today, sleeping with a source is simply good “journalism.” Not to mention, “access.” (more…)

In June 2007 Castro’s Stalinist regime held a “tourism fair” in Havana to kick-off an ambitious plan to boost the Cuban military’s tourist booty. By some peculiar coincidence NBC’s Today Show decided to broadcast from Havana that very week. Amidst smiling, clapping, dancing tourists, Matt Lauer and Andrea Mitchell advised viewers on how to legally vacation in Cuba.

Don’t look for this from NBC, but Castro’s Soviet-trained and armed military and secret police own most of Cuba’s tourist facilities. Along with providing these inquisitive Cuban officials with certain “insights” regarding visitors to Castro’s fiefdom, this set-up also insures that most of the money that tourists spend in Cuba lands in the pocket of the only people in Cuba with guns.

Yet Castro apologists and/or agents (both on the payroll and off) keep insisting that a flood of rich Western tourists will magically smother Cuban Stalinism whereupon the island nation will quickly mutate into a bigger (and more historic and picturesque) Cozumel. This logic (which Matt and Andrea naturally shared) seems to go something like this: rewarding and enriching the KGB-trained and heavily armed guardians of Cuba’s Stalinist status-quo will magically convert them into instant opponents of that Stalinist status quo.

Amazingly, this line of reasoning fails to convince those with first-hand experience under Cuba’s Stalinist regime. But never mind this insufferable rabble of “Cuban-American right-wing crackpots!” and their congressional allies. And never mind the evidence. (more…)

In the past, I have claimed that the mainstream media is in bed with the Obama Administration.  This time, I mean it literally.

According to the New York Post, Obama budget boss Peter Orszag is engaged to ABC correspondent Bianna Golodryga.  Meanwhile, his ex-girlfriend Claire Milonas, gave birth to his illegitimate child on November 17.  Orszag is already a two-time father by his first wife (they are divorced, naturally).

Bianna Golodryga and Peter Orszag

The media is treating this whole story as a seedy morality play starring an incredibly nerdy Director of OMB.  But even though it now appears that Orszag was spreading his seed just as profligately as taxpayer money, that isn’t the real story.

The real story here is actually Bianna Golodryga and the extremely cozy relationship that sometimes develops between reporters and their sources.

Golodryga, according to her profile at ABCNews.com, covers “the economy and business beat for all of the network’s programs, including World News Tonight, Good Morning America Weekend, and Nightline… Golodryga reported extensively on the housing and credit crisis as well as the collapse of Bear Stearns.” (more…)