NBC News president Steve Capus fired back at Americans for Limited Government Friday, after the conservative group published an email allegedly from NBC producer Jane Stone to its director of media outreach Alex Rosenwald, with one line: “Bite me Jew Boy.”



“I’m still in shock, and outraged that this reckless organization would go out with such a defamatory, irresponsible statement,” Capus told POLITICO. “We have done a complete email analysis, all of our IT, all of our records.”

Here's what both sides agree on: Stone responded Thursday to a mass email from ALG.

But Stone’s response email—provided to POLITICO—did not have any anti-Semitic comment. In fact, it had just one line: “Take me off this list!”

“Somebody, on the other end, I’m assuming, took the return stamp from the email and then put in this hateful message,” Capus said. “I don’t know who did it. It’s outrageous to suspect that somebody from NBC News would do it.”

Capus said he contacted the group and asked them to rescind the press release that accompanied publication of the email. He said that ALG would not agree, and the instead responded with a “politically-fueled rant against NBC, and a completely irresponsible diatribe."

Stone is a 15-year employee at NBC, and also teaches at NYU. (In full disclosure: I took her class on “Press Ethics" in spring 2004, and was therefore shocked by the allegations made by ALG).

You can see ALG's version of the email here on their website. I’m including the email Stone sent ALG—which NBC verifies—here, with version ALG says it received.

From: Stone, Jane (NBC Universal)

Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 1:57 PM

To: '[email protected]'

Subject: Re: ALG Calls on Congress to "Put Up or Shut Up" on Defunding ACORN

Take me off this list!



--------------------------

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld



From: Stone, Jane (NBC Universal) [[email protected]]

Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 1:57 PM

To: Alex Rosenwald

Subject: Re: ALG Calls on Congress to "Put Up or Shut Up" on Defunding ACORN



Bite me Jew boy!



--------------------------

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld



UPDATE: Carter Clews, Director of Communications for Americans for Limited Government, has issued a statement following Capus' interview with POLITICO. And NBC has put out an official statement, too Both are after the jump.

We at Americans for Limited Government are saddened that instead of helping us to get to the bottom of the hateful email that was indeed sent from NBC's server, and this can be verified, and was not tampered with, which can also be verified, that NBC President Steve Capus has instead chosen to circle the wagons and protect what is indefensible with hysterical, frantic accusations.



This email has left a digital footprint that is undeniable. We did our due diligence. We have confirmed that it indeed came from NBC's server and Jane Stone's email address.



As before, we renew our offer that we made to both Ms. Stone and NBC President Capus over the phone today to get to the bottom of who sent this email from Ms. Stone's Blackberry email address. That offer remains open, and we would like it very much if both Ms. Stone and NBC would issue an apology to both Americans for Limited Government, and Mr. Alex Rosenwald, who was the target of this hateful email.



UPDATE 2: NBC's statement:

Americans for Limited Government has chosen to launch an outrageous, reckless attack and smear campaign against an NBC News employee. Faced with irrefutable evidence that our employee did nothing more than ask to be removed from an email mailing list, the organization has maliciously published a fabricated email.



Our employee never sent any such email.. She is completely innocent of the outrageous charges and is being used by an organization to make a self-serving point. This is a shameless, hateful and defaming act which should be roundly denounced.



(Correction Initially, it appeared the dashes in the two emails were of different lengths, but I was wrong. In the same format, they're equal)

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