• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 5 hours ago

With opinionated MSNBC out of the way, a new NBC News promo is taking shots at the kind of partisan yakking typified by MSNBC and the other cable news channels.

“Fact. Clarity. Calm. Reporting For America.” goes the tagline at the end of the 60-second spot that began running recently. The message: With NBC News, you get facts, not opinion.

MSNBC is not mentioned in the promo, but the spot’s timing coincides with the exit of MSNBC -- newly christened MS NOW -- earlier this month from the NBCUniversal fold. 

In fact, the new NBC News promo can be interpreted as a rebuke of the kind of overheated cable-TV talk that rattles nerves and heightens fears.

When MSNBC was a part of NBC News, such criticism would not have been possible. But now that the two are no longer associated, the new NBC News promo implies that the MSNBC style was wrong all along.

The spot consists almost entirely of the voices of 14 people not seen onscreen who are sharing their frustrations with the state of TV news today and how the relentless liberal vs. conservative arguing on cable TV media has undermined or completely destroyed their trust in news. 

“I turned off news altogether.” says one woman. “It’s all bull[bleep]!” says one man.

“They make everything seem extreme, seem scary,” says another woman. “UGGHHH! Just tell the truth!” laments another.

The two-part tagline then appears onscreen at the conclusion of the spot. The words “Facts. Clarity. Calm.” appear on their own screen, followed by the words “Reporting for America” on the next one as the spot concludes.