We always get a kick out of these screenshots of emails from reporters. It's obvious they already have the story written, and are just doing some journalism by reaching out for comment from the person they're preparing a hit piece on. NBC News' Matt Lavietes noticed that Raichik had been appointed to the Oklahoma State Department of Education Library Media Advisory Committee. "How do you plan to help Walters make Oklahoma 'safer for kids and friendly to parents'? How do you plan to use your skills to 'benefit Oklahoma students and their families?'"
Suddenly NBC News is interested in the Oklahoma Department of Education.
Raichik sent a composite of graphic images from "Gender Queer," "This Book Is Gay," "Flamer," and "Let's Talk About It." Keep in mind that NBC News couldn't broadcast the images from these books even if they wanted to.
"Do you think this is appropriate for kids in school?" Raichik replied. Lavietes didn't have an answer for that.
A couple of years ago, NBC News took credit for alerting the ACLU to "the movement to ban school library books dealing with sexuality and gender" — experts say.
Raichik was smart to turn this around. Why does NBC News want books with graphic sexually explicit images in school libraries?
Last year, NBC News jumped on the story of Amanda Gorman's poem being "banned," when in reality it was just reshelved for older readers. It was still there, in the same library, just on a different shelf. But NBC News ran with it anyway.
twitchy.com