Commentary
NBC News Meanies Gang Up On New Girl
- by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, March 29, 2024
Ronna McDaniels was in the picture for one episode before she was cancelled, but she is in good company.
The same thing happened to The Great One himself, Jackie Gleason, who hosted a game show on CBS called “You’re In the Picture” that became infamous for the brevity of its run -- a single episode in 1961.
The show was so terrible that it died on arrival. The following week, Gleason appeared in the same time period to apologize.
Among other things, he reportedly wondered aloud “how it was possible for a group of trained people to put on so big a flop.”
Maybe the same people were reincarnated as the current generation of NBC News executives who hired McDaniel as a paid political analyst.
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By the looks of it, the trained bosses who made this high-profile, on-air hire did so without giving enough thought to the audience that matters most at NBC News -- the stars who work for them.
McDaniel served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2017 to earlier this month, March 8.
Last Friday, the news broke that NBC News had hired her as a political analyst. On Sunday, she appeared on “Meet the Press” with moderator Kristen Welker (photo above).
It would turn out to be her only appearance on an NBC News show under her new title, although she had appeared on “Meet the Press” previously as a guest as recently as last November.
Later in that very same show on Sunday, with selfless courage, former “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd heroically took the lead in denouncing McDaniel and those who hired her.
With Todd at the head of the spear, the other NBC News stars lined up behind him, most notably Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC Monday morning and, later that evening, Rachel Maddow on her one weekly appearance on the cable channel.
On Tuesday, the memo went out from the tippy-top of the NBC News ladder that she was gone: Don’t worry, mean girls and boys, Ms. McDaniel will darken your doorsteps no more.
At issue was McDaniel’s relationship with Donald Trump and her alleged acquiescence in his efforts, which have continued unabated since the 2020 elections, to undermine the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election as President.
The NBC News stars called her an “election denier,” a term once associated solely with those who would deny the Holocaust, but now the word “denier” has been appended to other issues such as elections and climate change (“climate-change denier”).
But whenever TV news types leap up on their high horses to denounce others over, in this case, their unfitness for inclusion on their hallowed TV news shows, it provides welcome amusement for the rest of us.
Chuck Todd and the rest have now denied their company an opportunity to see if cultivating a new air talent with a point of view that differs from everybody else’s could drive an increase in viewership or drive viewers away.
Viewership still counts in the TV business, right? Allowing the chips to fall where they may is the TV version of a free marketplace.
But now, the actual viewers who make up the audience for NBC’s news content will not get a chance to vote with their remote controls (and other devices) on the appropriateness of allowing this card-carrying conservative fox into the liberal NBC News henhouse.
NBC News, as a respectable and legitimate news organization, never should have agreed to go into business with Ronna, who has no credibility. The issue was never "a point of view that differs from everybody else," the issue is that her "point of view" is outright false, defamatory, and detrimental to the foundations of our country. It wasn't just a "point of view" when she led efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 election, and still refuses to accept the outcome and apologize for those efforts. Efforts that were all proven to be categorically false by multiple courts. Until Ronna and others take accountability for their actions and stop spreading lies, the media should not be giving them a platform.
Chad's points are on the money as was Lawrence O'Donnell when he pointed out that it was 40 years after Watergate that John Dean appeared on CNN. You don't hire folks who've branded you as "enemies of the people..."
Right idea, wrong execution. As a long-time viewer of Meet The Press and a fan of NBC, I fully support bringing in multiple points of view. MTP attempts to do this each week on their panel (albeit usually a 3-1 liberal to conservative mix). Many of their conservative contributors are reasonable, level-headed, and forthright. I take issue with some of their positions and opinions and benefit from hearing them. Any one of them would make a great addition as a paid NBC political analyst. But not Ronna. I don't need to restate what Chad Kennedy wrote so well above. McDaniel's irresponsibility and lack of contrition have no place in a news organization. Though there are a couple of "faux-news-tainment" outlets that will probably pick her up.
All the news networks had previously hired former Trump people as news consultants or correspondents. What made her so different? Maybe the booted Chuck Todd commands residual respect. Anyway, she got a golden parachute for a day's work.
Douglas, can you name for me the election deniers or folks who call the mainstream media "enemies of the people" that have been hired by the major TV networks? (Newsmax, et al don't count.)
Ronna McDaniel will be getting a big pay day from NBC as they need to pay her in full, NB will be in court or be settled out of court what they did with Megyn Kelly. NBC News was wrong to cave from those within NBC News/MSNBC.
Jeff Toobin fired from CNN for pleasuring himself on a zoom call - then rehired.
Brian Williams demoted on NBC for lying about events, then moved to MSNBC.
Donna Brazile, working for CNN, was caught giving advance notice to the Clinton camp in 2016 about a debate question and was fired, only to be hired by ABC News.
Andrea Mitchel on NBC/MSNBC has a career of fabricating lies and is occassionally asked to apologize.
These are the high standards legacy news outlets stand for.
Ronna McDaniel has never been fired or convicted and anyone who expected her to say anything negative about Trump or any other republican given her position with the RNC is delusional. Every member of the RNC was her constituent and will continue to be her constituent. She has stated publicly that Biden won the election, but she believes there were problems with the process in 2020.
Chuck Todd tries to claim this isn't about ideology, but it has everything to do with ideology and then MediaPost and all the other news outlets scratch their heads wondering why Americans increasingly distrust the media. Example after example of the double standards and feigned and flawed moral high ground from the media elites.
She wasn't hired to anchor NBC Nighly news. She was hired to offer a viewpoint - an inside baseball look at what may be going on and interpreting events as they unfold heading into the 2024 election. If she's on a panel and is going to debate with those on the left, what was the harm? Wasn't that the whole point? Rachel Maddow or Chuck Todd should have been anxious to debate her instead of cancelling her.
This isn't NBC News - it's a casting for High School Musical.