NBC hires McDaniel
NBC hired former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel with great fanfare. After all, it thought doing so would present viewers with the “fair and balanced” news analysis Fox News once promised but never delivered.
Then all hell broke loose.
NBC fires McDaniel
The network had only just announced four days earlier that they were bringing McDaniel on board to provide “expert insight and analysis” on politics. “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” one NBC News executive told staff at the time. …
But the company’s on-air personalities — especially those on NBC’s liberal-leaning cable affiliate MSNBC — disagreed vehemently, saying that McDaniel’s promotion of former president Donald Trump’s media-bashing and false election-fraud claims disqualified her from a role in their news divisions.
(The Washington Post, March 26, 2024)
Except that NBC executives showed who they really are. The damage is done.
Media hypocrisy
Rachel Maddow led the protest those on-air personalities waged. And they were right to do so.
After all, the zealous way McDaniel championed Trump’s anti-democratic and dystopian lies should be disqualifying. And that should be the case not just for her at NBC but for all of Trump’s willing propagandists seeking a job in any profession.
Simply put, treat them like pariahs — as the legal profession is treating Trump’s legal jesters, Rudy Guiliani and John Eastman, who are both facing disbarment.
But, given their outrage, you’d never know that these same on-air personalities feed viewers Trump’s anti-democratic and dystopian lies every day straight from the horse’s mouth. Indeed, MSNBC and CNN cover everything Trump says and does every bit as much as Fox does.
These liberal channels play up their eye-rolling fact-checking and sky-is-falling punditry as a public service. In truth, they cover him because, like natural disasters, Trump on TV is a ratings boon. And they couldn’t care less that they’re aiding and abetting Trump’s presidential campaign … again.
I’ve been calling out this hypocritical, venal charade since day one — as I did in “Humping Trump Exposes News Anchormen as Worse than Used Car Salesmen” on May 2, 2016. And they have done nothing to disabuse me of my contempt for them.
Regarding this obsessive coverage of Trump, former CBS president and CEO Les Moonves famously quipped:
It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS…
Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now?… The money’s rolling in and this is fun.
(The Hollywood Reporter, February 29, 2016)
It’s self-evident that he was speaking for all CEOs of broadcast and cable news stations.
Even more hypocritical, though, is that this is the same MSNBC that sidelined Muslim personalities to appease American Zionists. That’s the TV anchor equivalent of being told to sit at the back of the bus.
Medhi Hassan, my favorite anchor, found the professional slight unbearable. Channeling his inner Booker T. Washington, he left MSNBC to launch his own media company.