***To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***
As NewsBusters reported Monday night, NBC News has launched a new report series dedicated to promoting the “big ideas” put forward solely by Democratic 2020 candidates ahead of the debates in a few weeks. Tuesday’s edition of the series followed California Senator Kamala Harris as she campaigned in South Carolina to jack up the death tax to pay for an increase in teacher salaries.
NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt flaunted the fact that the series was only open to Democrats looking push their radical policy positions. “[W]e turn now to My Big Idea. Our series giving Democrats running for president a chance to share an idea that they believe separates them from the pack,” he admitted.
Just as he did with Senator Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All plan the previous evening, correspondent Harry Smith aided Harris in pitching the idea to viewers. “Harris says, recent teacher demonstrations across the country are proof a plan like hers is needed. She claims teachers on average make 11 percent less than other comparably educated professionals. So, she wants to give them a $13,500 raise,” he said.
Smith did qualify those points as “Harris says” and “she claims”, but there, of course, was no obvious effort to fact-check anything the Senator asserted. He also failed to mention what the average salary for a teacher was and how that stacked up to the average national income of Americans.
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