NBC Suspends Journalist Over Paul Pelosi Report, While an NBC Affiliate Seemed to Corroborate Story

Despite the effort to kill off the Pelosi attack news, the continued fumbles in the press keep the story alive.

The attack on Paul Pelosi, the spouse of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in the San Francisco home owned by the couple, continues to be vexing for the press. The attempt to use the claim of a partisan attacker on Pelosi for political leverage ended up blowing up the story, and as more details of that night emerged, the more problems it caused. Soon, the media had a story they built up becoming one they desperately wanted to go away.

The main problem has been the series of conflicting details to come out of that fateful evening, which fueled interest and theorizing. You sense the desperation in the press as journalists attempt to lay the blame for the speculation on right-wing zealots and conspiracy theories, despite the fact the contradictions in the story have come from law enforcement and the media. The blame has been placed on those repeating the news reports; conspiracies are when you quote news outlets, goes the accusation.

The perplexing detail in this was when a report emerged from NBC News, as field reporter Miguel Almaguer gave details from a source that suggested Paul Pelosi had been the one to answer the door and bring in the police that evening, and that Pelosi was not in a state of observable distress. Almaguer also said that Pelosi, at one point, went back to where his intruder was located, only then being attacked in front of police. Days later, the report was taken down from the NBC website, as well as being scrubbed from social media.

The explanation was that the report did not live up to NBC journalism standards. This is a curious explanation, as it was not the work of a rogue reporter. The initial video was shown on The Today Show, and as national news segments go this had to pass through a number of editorial hands before making it to the airwaves. Now, however, we learn that Almaguer has been suspended by NBC News over this report.

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