Rather than functioning as a news organization, NBC news simply allowed itself to be used as a PR outlet promoting the clearly self-interested complaints of its source, just as Andrew Duehren at The Wall Street Journal did the following day. And why?

This isn’t “fake news.” It is news fraud. It is a conscious failure to cover an equally critical part of a news story that isn’t hidden, but sitting there in plain sight. It is a conscious choice by a news organization to only run the allegations of a source and allow selective use of a tape offered as bait to support those allegations and in the process provide only negative information on the Trump administration. Kelly states the White House had “integrity” issues with Manigault Newman. But she at least makes no pretensions to greater ideals than her own self-promotion. There are even greater integrity issues with news organizations that do.

“Fake news” may often be a matter of opinion, but a blatant case of intentional news fraud against the fair presentation of a news story of interest to Americans is hard to miss. Avoiding exploring why she was fired, when the opportunity to do so was readily at hand, has only one net effect: It avoids challenging the veracity of Manigault Newman’s charges against Trump and his administration.