The spot above depicts a mock election night during which Sen. John McCain has won the presidential election, 51-49 percent, over Sen. Barack Obama. Anchoring the faux election is NBC’s Tom Brokaw, and Keith Olbermann (also of NBC fame) can also be heard. Apparently, NBC is pissed that the guys were improperly used (without NBC’s consent, of course) in the ad.
The spot drew the attention of NBC a day or so ago, at which point they sent the Obama camp (which posted the spot on YouTube for VoteForChange dot org) a cease-and-desist letter. But so far, the video has not been taken down.
Read the rest of the drama, after the jump.
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NBC News spokeswoman Allison Gollust told TVNewser: “We have engaged the Obama campaign on the legal front and demanded that they stop using the ad,” Gollust said. “To date they have not complied. Their response was to put a tagline at the end of the ad. However, that is not good enough, and we continue to demand they cease and desist using this outrageous ad.”
Instead, a short message pops up in the lower portion of the screen, reading, “NBC and MSNBC did not cooperate in the making of this video.”
Oh, well that clears it up. Is there any question why it’s referred to as, “the liberal media”? In this case, at least, NBC clearly isn’t at fault, save for employing Olbermann and Brokaw to begin with. But that’s another story.
TVNewser also reports that YouTube has been contacted on the matter, but thus far the video is still active. If it’s been pulled by the time you’re reading this, you need to be a more active AgencySpy!
Update: The video is down as of 1:00 EST.