According to the New York Times, former first child Chelsea Clinton is joining NBC News to report stories for the “Making a Difference” series on the network’s nightly news broadcast. Ms. Clinton’s stories will focus on feel-good tales of community volunteer work.
NBC News is clearly the destination of choice for former first children who want to dabble in journalism. George W. Bush’s daughter, Jenna Bush Hager, signed on as a correspondent for the “Today Show” in August 2009.
NBC News president Steve Capus told the Times he was approached by a representative of Ms. Clinton’s about taking a job with the network in July. “We knew she wasn’t going to do the lead story. But having somebody who was going to do really captivating feature assignments for the ‘Making a Difference’ franchise really kind of synced up,” Mr. Capus said.
Since her father left office in January 2001, Ms. Clinton has kept herself quite busy. She graduated from Stanford University in 2001. Ms. Clinton went on to attend Oxford University where she graduated with a master’s degree in international relations in 2003. Following her studies at Oxford, Ms. Clinton spent three years working at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. In 2006, she left McKinsey to work at a hedge fund, Avenue Capital Group. In 2008, she spent a great deal of time working on her mother’s presidential campaign. Ms. Clinton returned to academia in 2009 to get a second master’s degree at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She graduated in 2010. Ms. Clinton has no experience working in journalism.
Mr. Capus told the Times he expected Ms. Clinton to take a very active role reporting her stories for NBC News. “She wants to be in the field for the shoot and in the edit room for the edit,” Mr. Capus said. “We both want to see how this goes. It will be full time for the near-term future. But I hope it’s the beginning of a nice, long-term relationship.”
To those without presidential parents who are to survive the dismal journalism job market, we can only offer the words of broadcast great Edward R. Murrow, “Good night and good luck.”
