Chelsea Clinton makes debut as TV reporter

During casual dinners in New York, Chelsea Clinton began talking to friends about something she had been mulling: She wanted to stop pretending to be someone other than Chelsea Clinton.


What an assertion from someone who had lived most of her 31 years removed from the spotlight, despite the high profile of both parents — one a former president, the other the secretary of state.


Yes, Chelsea had been spotted through the years, as she grew from a gangly teenager into a stylishly dressed woman.


Still, for the most part, she seemed determined to keep her private life private.


This time, however, talk addressed the notion that, if she were to face the downside of being the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, under constant scrutiny, why not also take advantage of the upside?

Her first effort took her to Pine Bluff, a small town in (as Brian Williams reminded us) “her home state of Arkansas” (and it’s a good thing he reminded us, because nothing whatsoever about present-day Chelsea Clinton seems at all Arkansan — whatever that would seem like). There, she profiled Annette Dove, a woman who runs an after-school center called TOPPS (Targeting Our People’s Priority with Service), which predominantly serves black, very poor children.


Clinton will continue such segments as part of NBC’s “Making a Difference” featurettes, which are not unlike ABC News’s “Person of the Week” segments, and, frankly, not unlike the article and photos laid out in the center of most newspapers’ Metro pages — so many points of light that one eventually becomes inured to them, especially when one is on the hunt for news. Coincidentally enough, “Rock Center’s” first half-hour consisted of an epically long report from the also newly hired correspondent Ted Koppel — who got his start in broadcast journalism 48 years ago — on the precarious void that will remain after U.S. troops pull out of Iraq this month.


Stories from the Chelsea beat, meanwhile, are all meant to do a few things, very quickly: Highlight some bright spot of good news in otherwise bleak circumstances; indicate how viewers might help out the situation, if so inclined; and (this is never once said, but almost always palpable in the empathetic eyes of the reporter) ennoble the reporter herself, and thereby ennoble the network. This is why Clinton says she is doing television — to make a difference.