Dateline Stockgate Update: POSTPONED YET AGAIN!
by Mark Faulk
It's official: Representatives at Dateline have confirmed that the Stockgate segment originally scheduled for Sunday, April 10th, at 7 pm ET, HAS BEEN POSTPONED. According to Dateline, the segment will definitely still air, but that because of scheduling conflicts that have arisen due to the death of the Pope, the Stockgate segment schedule has been pushed back. A Dateline official confirmed that special segments that aired at the time of the Pope's death has caused a "major reshuffling of the entire Dateline schedule". Dateline producer Sharon Hoffman said that, "It has been a very busy news cycle, and Dateline is always subject to change." They have not yet announced a new air date for the show.
Instead, according to the Dateline website, they will air a segment in which "NBC's Al Roker sits down with 'American Idol' star Ruben Studdard to discuss his latest gospel album and how his life has changed since beating Clay Aiken on the second season of 'American Idol.'" Wow! An interview with last year's American Idol winner. It HAS been a busy news cycle!
Once again, this raises the usual questions about how committed Dateline is to this story, and after postponements and cancellations that have kept this off the air for over a year, those concerns are valid. While Dateline officials assured us that they "will air the segment", the major media has been stepping up the pressure over the past few weeks, releasing a flurry of articles on the naked short selling scandal that has plagued the stock market for years.
As for the Dateline segment, according to representatives with Koerner Kronenfeld Partners, who are the communications directors for attorneys O’Quinn, Laminack & Pirtle, Christian, Smith, Wukoson and Jewell, and Heard, Robins, Cloud, Lubel & Greenwood, the law firms representing clients in dozens of lawsuits filed against the SEC, the DTCC, and several of the country's largest brokerage firms, Dateline producer Sharon Hoffman has spent the week fact-checking and editing the story. We have also heard several unsubstantiated rumors that the DTCC has been pressuring Dateline to change or not air the story at all, and that Dateline is doing additional fact-checking as a result. We'll update that information as the story continues to develop.
So there you have it: one more delay on the story that has been called "been called the biggest financial scandal in the history of the world, with incurred losses estimated by some experts at well over $1 trillion dollars." Instead, it's beginning to look like everyone will be treated to a hard-hitting interview with American Idol teddy bear Ruben Studdard. Enjoy. We'll keep you posted, and that's the Faulking Truth.
