An Open Letter to MSNBC

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to you today to voice my displeasure and regret at what has happened to the NBC News organization. For the past thirty-one years, I have considered myself a loyal NBC viewer -- of both your news and entertainment programs. I have always considered them to be of a higher quality than other television offerings. I grew up watching Tom Brokaw on the Nightly News and have always viewed him and the rest of the NBC News organization as some of the most professional journalists in the world. Last night, though, my entire view of your organization was turned on its head and will forever be tarnished. I am speaking, of course, of the decision to exclude Dennis Kucinich from the Nevada Democratic debate on January 15th, 2008 immediately followed by the miserable debate moderation by Brian Williams and Tim Russert.

By excluding Congressman Kucinich from the debate last night, NBC has chosen who our Democratic candidates are. Mr. Kucinich has had a long and distinguished political career that spans nearly my entire life. For nearly thirty years he has had a consistent message regarding his vision for making our country great, and therefore as a presidential candidate he deserves to have his message heard as part of the greater discourse on how the next four years of government will be ran. By excluding the congressman from the debate you are implicitly responsible for making his candidacy unfeasible -- which is obviously the exact reason you chose to exclude him. As a news organization, you enjoy ultimate protections under the First Amendment. But, with those protections comes a responsibility: to provide due diligence to your viewers and readers and to provide them with all the relevant information available on a subject. Excluding a candidate -- who is still on the ballot --from a debate does a disservice to the American population and tarnishes your reputation as an honest and reputable source of information.

Perhaps your news editors will rethink their decision of excluding Mr. Kucinich once they review the performances of Mr. Williams and Mr. Russert as debate moderators. For over twenty minutes, we as viewers were forced to watch two distinguished journalists attempt to start a petty squabble between Senators Obama and Clinton over the issues of race -- a topic that prior to the debate they had clearly stated was no longer open for conversation. Instead, Mr. Williams and Mr. Russert attempted to goad the candidates into a personal attack on one another, instead of asking substantive questions regarding, i.e.: the economy, the war, health care, corporate intrusion in the election process, the environment, eduction, President Bush's legacy, America's moral standing in the world, and a host of other topics.

The senseless barrage of questioning was only ended when a heckler from the audience clearly voiced to all your viewers his displeasure, and called for an end to the line of questioning. The priceless "deer-in-the-headlights" look on Tim Russert's face at that moment seemed to say to me that he had a number of follow-up questions regarding race and, quite possibly, a number of gender-related ones to keep us going through the first hour. I for one was pleased to see the questioning end and move on to the topics which our next president will actually be faced with.

Why were the news editors afraid to include Mr. Kucinich? Were they afraid that they would be interviewing three candidates who sound the same on all of the issues, only to be left with one candidate who would not only offer up a contrary point of view to the issues, but also be able to back it up by a voting record that he shows no regret for, unlike the others sharing the stage? By including him, maybe the debate last night would have been much more helpful to us in choosing a Democratic nominee. Instead, last night's debate only served to help mesh Senators Clinton, Edwards, and Obamas' messages together, into an amalgamation with no distinguishable differences between the three. Instead of choosing a presidential nominee and their message, we are left to only choose the face of our presidential nominee, and do we want it to be white or black, male or female? That choice is as exciting as choosing to have fries or onion rings at a fast food restaurant.

I feel that NBC News has lowered the standards of its journalism and interjected its corporate preferences into our election process -- something no respectable journalism organization should ever do. You have lost my respect as a news organization and only significant amends to your journalistic practices will prove that your organization takes its role in society seriously.

Sent to letters@msnbc.com and info@kucinich.us. Thanks to Meggi for the editing and cleanup help.