With fifteen days to go before the Presidential election, do some TV marketing executives have regrets about falsely promoting Donald Trump?
For his part, the former President flips this tag in his favor, and still complains about fake news.
But what about the fake news that benefited him -- especially the one that rocketed him to huge national exposure with NBC show "The Apprentice" -- which started in 2004 and ran for 14 seasons?
John Miller, former chief marketing executive at NBCUniversal, has deep contrition regarding all his efforts over the year, as revealed in a recent U.S. News op-ed piece -- and related posts on X.
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"In its own way, it was 'fake news' that we spread over America like a heavy snowstorm," said Miller. "I never imagined that the picture we painted of Trump as a successful businessman would help catapult him to the White House."
Miller has been especially remorseful about "relentlessly" promoting the show with "thousands of 30-second promo spots that spread the fantasy of Trump’s supposed business acumen."
That was false, he say, in a major way. “At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.”
Why? We know this. Trump filed for bankruptcy four times before starting “The Apprentice” and two more times while the show was airing. He also blew around $275 million in inheritance money from his father Fred Trump, according to reports.
In promoting him as a business leader, Miller is now blaming himself for raising his profile -- and creating a high-profile false image.
“I deeply regret that. And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public.... If you believe that Trump will be better for you or better for the country, that is an illusion, much like 'The Apprentice' was.”
And what about fake news with regard to the show -- when it came to it viewership? Trump had a hand in that.
In those years, Trump would continually say it was the number one show. Miller would try to correct him about that. It wasn’t. Ever.
Trump didn’t like that. “He didn’t like being fact-checked back then either.”
But perhaps it doesn’t end there. What about the responsibility of creating an unscripted TV show about a successful businessman in the first place? Mark Burnett was the producer who “cast” Trump in this role.
Back in 2016, before the election that year, Burnett disavowed the “hatred, division and misogyny” that has become associated with the Trump Presidential campaign. He added: “I have never been a supporter of Donald Trump’s candidacy.”
But critics see the other side: Tony Schwartz, who wrote The Art of the Deal, insists that “Mark Burnett’s show was the single biggest factor in putting Trump in the national spotlight.”
Since then, of course, many people associated with Trump have also had regrets -- especially a huge number of senior officials who worked with him in his term as President.
Marketing and advertising-wise, are they any existing latecomers who want to step up to own their efforts behind a false Trump narrative?
A new -- and possibly even more risky -- Presidential TV season is now arriving. And it's unscripted for sure -- but in real life.