Bob Costas' Desperate Plea to Springsteen: 'Cover Our Butts'

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By Matt Haber

August 21, 2008 | 8:21 a.m.

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The Huffington Post's Media page alerts us to a note from Bob Costas on NBC's 'The Daily Nightly' blog. In it, Mr. Costas apologizes to his colleague Brian Williams and Olympics superstar Michael Phelps for passing along an erroneous report that Bruce Springsteen had dedicated "Born in the U.S.A." to Mr. Phelps:

I had every reason to believe this information was accurate, and its source was reliable. In fact, I had intended to use it in my own interview with Phelps, but when time didn’t allow for it, I passed the story on to Brian, who did use it. As you may have seen, Phelps lit up at the story, which rang true for the additional reason that it’s the sort of thing Bruce might very well have done.

"Except that in this case," Mr. Costas concluded, "he didn’t."

Then Mr. Costas sent a very personal plea to Mr. Springsteen, which we're passing along in the hope that he's a Media Mob reader:

Now if The Boss could just cover our butts by giving Mr. Phelps a shout-out on Thursday night in Nashville, or Saturday night in my hometown of St. Louis – a show I’d definitely be at were I not in Beijing – I think I’d feel a lot better.