Is Jim Miklaszewski A Buckraker? (NBC Pentagon 'reporter')

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/15/is-jim-miklaszewski-a-buckraker/

So I’m reading Jamison Foser’s usual excellent column at Media Matters discussing why John Edwards’ $400 haircut is always in the news, and I come upon this really interesting nugget. According to the Providence Journal’s Tom Mooney, apparently, NBC Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski was paid $30,000 to give a speech for the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, a speech in which he bashed Edwards for the haircut incident. Let’s leave aside Miklaszewski’s Bushnik ‘the enemy is patient and America has a short attention span’ wingnut rhetoric, and focus on a very specific practice going on here known in the industry as ‘buckraking’.

Buckraking is the practice whereby a journalist is paid to speak to a business or right-wing group for large sums of money, and buckraking is a serious offense (it’s also apparently against NBC’s corporate policy). <..>

link to Providence Journal:

http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20070502_bizexpo.2ca96e61.html

"Some things are right on the mark, when he says the Bush administration appeared predisposed to attack Iraq.''

How does Miklaszewski - whom the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce paid $30,000 for his talk - know for sure?

His information, Miklaszewski told an audience of about 200 people, comes from some "off the record'' notes taken in the White House situation room in the hours after the attacks. Miklaszewski said someone gave him the notes two years ago. He did not say who nor explain why, if they were "off the record'' he was now sharing them with an audience.

(snip)

Reading from his notes, Miklaszewski quoted Rumsfeld as saying five hours after the terrorist attacks: "My interest is to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time we go after al-Qaida.''