The story actually came from a local newspaper in Connecticut; another organization that’s probably desperate for attention and has nothing to lose from publishing BS. I believe (but can’t say for sure) that it went national when Slate republished the story. MSNBC wasn’t even the first news organization to try some clever editing with the video. That honor goes to the Huffington Post. Although, their’s wasn’t nearly as bad.

Those that are very good at propaganda, concurrently suffer from a severe weakness against physical violence.

First off, ignore NBC news. They tend to get between nine and nine and a half million viewers per night, of whom only 2.2 – 2.5 million are between the ages of 25 and 54. On any given night, people middle aged and younger are more likely to watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory than NBC Nightly news.

As far as the internet rumors are concerned, you have a point but your exaggerating the effect NBC has. NBC isn’t starting these rumors, they’re just building on whats already out there. And while a big name network might lend some credibility to a story, you hardly need them to spread false stories on the internet.
For example, I remember after the Trevon Martin shooting a number of my friends telling me he had been shot in the back while running away from his attacker. I don’t think any reputable news source published that. It got started on a blog somewhere and people passed it around. The faked 911 call didn’t fool anyone. It just confirmed what a lot of people already wanted to believe.

A problem we have here is that people tend to think of NBC as a self-standing entity; few realize that it is now a joint enterprise of Comcast and GE (although GE has stated its intention to reduce, and I believe eventually eliminate, its ownership stake)

If polls showed that, say, 30% of Americans “strongly believed” that Comcast and GE were engaging in unethical media manipulation, it would surely be of concern to the CEOs and Boards of those two companies.

I understand your sentiment, but IMO its futile. The big corporations (GE is a perfect example) and the big banks do not care what we think or care about our investment in their shares. As an individual, if you are worth less than $5 million, you are spare change to these people; although they are happy to take your change.