Guest Post by Kristinn Taylor
Gabriela Resto-Montero
Gabriela Resto-Montero, the MSNBC reporter whose byline was on the article about the new Cheerios ad featuring a bi-racial family that smeared conservatives as racists was not fired by MSNBC. Resto-Montero tweeted Sunday morning on her personal MSNBC Twitter account about the posting of a new MSNBC interview session she hosted, demonstrating that she was not the person fired by MSNBC in response to the backlash over a tweet on the official MSNBC Twitter account promoting her article.
The Cheerios article by Resto-Montero served as the basis for the MSNBC tweet heard around the world that prompted an apology from MSNBC on Twitter and later personally by the network’s president Phil Griffin. Griffin also claimed to have fired the person responsible for the tweet.
Resto-Montero’s MSNBC profile gives her title as Community Editor for MSNBC.
Resto-Montero’s Her Linkedin profile expands on her job description: “Edit and write political news stories for MSNBC.com, curate the homepage, coordinate news coverage with MSNBC television shows, guide reporting on enterprise pieces dealing with political and social issues.” Her Linkedin profile details her media background as decidedly left wing with turns at The Nation and The American Prospect. She also has experience at non-ideological media–meaning professionally she should have known better.
Resto-Montero tweeted a link to her Cheerios article at 7:59 p.m. EST, Wednesday, January 30, 2014, fourteen minutes after the article was published. That tweet was innocuous: “Cheerios family is back and cuter than ever”. A few minutes later, at 8:06 p.m., the official MSNBC accounted tweeted a link to Resto-Montero’s article with this message: “Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/biracial family.”
Since then Resto-Montero has been absent from Twitter until this morning when she tweeted about Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) participating in an MSNBC question and answer session, hosted by Resto-Montero, about sexual assault in the military.
Resto-Montero’s Cheerios article contained two smears of conservatives that were discretely edited an hour after the article was published. The Gateway Pundit called out MSNBC over the failure to disclose the edits. It was not until the following day at 2:06 p.m. EST that MSNBC noted the edits. In bold at the top and bottom, respectively, MSNBC added: “This story was updated at 9:09 p.m. ET Wednesday.” And, “Editor’s note: This story was updated to remove erroneous language.”
The “erroneous language” was Resto-Montero’s wording in a supposed news article smearing conservatives as racists: “The breakfast cereal’s new Super Bowl ad features the same fictional biracial family that sparked a conservative backlash last year.” And, “Forget the Seahawks and the Broncos: there may be an outcry from the right, but most viewers are likely to declare this ad the Super Bowl winner.” As was demonstrated by the Gateway Pundit report, the links within the MSNBC article did not substantiate the reporting that conservatives were behind the racist attacks on the first Cheerios ad with the bi-racial family.
Phil Griffin said he has “dismissed the person responsible for the tweet.” But what about the reporter whose conservative-smearing article the tweet was based on? Could it be that Gabriela Resto-Montero is protected by Rachel Maddow who is trying, as National Review reported, to ‘remake MSNBC in her image’?
