Can I just say it, what a letdown. This is a girl who (forget about her parents for a second) graduated from Stanford with a degree in History, then went on to University College at Oxford and got a masters degree in international relations.  She is currently pursuing a doctorate at Oxford and working with the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative. She’s worked as an investment analysts at Avenue Capital Group and married an investment banker to boot, sits on the board of Barry Diller’s IAC and was recently rumored to be making a run for congress.  An apt fit for the Clinton legacy, but no, add TV reporter to that stellar resume, and not even a hard hitting one at that.

“For Clinton, the emphasis will be on perky and positive,” according to the Los Angeles Times, “…in projects for the news division’s ‘Making a Difference’ series – generally upbeat stories about people, celebrities included, and companies.” Wow, that is so not making a difference. 

Clinton did release a statement:

“I hope telling stories through ‘Making a Difference’ — as in my academic work and nonprofit work — will help me to live my grandmother’s adage of ‘Life is not about what happens to you, but about what you do with what happens to you.’”

A bit odd in that Chelsea spend years staying out of the limelight, seemingly to only shyly campaign for mom when Hillary ran for president.  Now she is squarely putting herself out there working on projects for “NBC Nightly News” and Brian Williams’ news magazine, “Rock Center.”

Some news outlets talk about the decline of journalism with hires like this following NBC hires of Jenna Bush Hagar (btw, Jenna is charming, but B.A.D.) and Meghan McCain,  ”Whenever a network TV news division pulls one of these nepotistic no-brainers, it saps a bit of American journalism’s life force,” says John McQuaid at Forbes. The news then starts taking on elements of entertainment rather than journalism and then where is the journalistic integrity and authority? Some even go as far as to mock the hire: “The supreme irony of Chelsea Clinton becoming an NBC reporter: I’m pretty sure she’s never granted an interview,” tweeted The New York Times‘ Jodi Kantor. (Chelsea refused to answer any question by any reporters during her mom’s run for president. She only fileded questions by those in the audience.)

Reportedly, she’ll donate her NBC salary to the Clinton Foundation and George Washington University Hospital. Okay, let’s give CC a little credit here… that will make a difference as I’m sure NBC is paying her a pretty penny.