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Yes, NBC's ownership is public knowledge, but so is the the bias of McCaffrey! The NYT just did a front page story on it!
It is public now; it wasn't public before today. It wasn't public for years when NBC was presenting McCaffrey as an independent analyst on these issues.
Public knowledge means that if you go looking for it, you can find it without breaking into secret files. The Freedom of Information Act renders a lot of things "public knowledge". That doesn't mean they are publicly known.
Fair enough, but some information is more publicly known than others.
Anyone interested in knowing who owns GE could easily find it. That's not the case for Barry McCaffrey's business relationships.
NBC's ownership may be public knowledge, but that doesn't mean that the public has knowledge of it. Joe the Plumber may very well believe that NBC is a corporation unto itself, with no bigger owner. And it is this lack of awareness that is causing the damage to truth, justice, and the American way.
I don't disagree that it's harmful, but what's your solution? As long as media companies remain privatized, rather than state-controlled, they'll be subject to these conflicts.
