NBC has this all backwards.
They were right to hire Ronna McDaniel
They were wrong to cave to the complaints of their liberal on-air anchors.
Now they are wrong to fire her.
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| NBC's own story. |
That makes her a perfect on-air contributor. Liberal commentators at NBC were furious. They should have been thrilled. She wasn't a threat to NBC's credibility. She was a threat to Trump's.
Ronna McDaniel is no hero now that she is starting to come clean on Trump's fake-elector plot and the Big Lie. She is very late to the game. Most of her damage was done. She represented the official public face of Republicans, and she normalized Trump. She did not leave the RNC voluntarily. She was fired. She was not loyal enough. She made her way to NBC because she needed a new perch.
You wouldn’t hire a wise guy -- a made man, like a mobster, to work in a DA’s office. You wouldn’t hire a pickpocket to work as a TCA screener. And so, I find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable, and I hope they will reverse their decision.
Those news hosts have it backwards. NBC should have her on air often.
Here is a link to the transcript of the interview between McDaniel and Meet the Press host Kristen Welker. Welker was ready for this interview. It established that the RNC was in on Trump's plot to pressure Michigan to discard the election Biden won. Welker got McDaniel to admit she had been lying about it, and that Biden won, "fairly and squarely." It shows McDaniel scrambling to preserve some sense of legitimate "face."
NBC should make McDaniel a centerpiece of Republicans trying to justify Trump. She reportedly was set to earn $300,000/year. NBC should have made her earn it. Ask her tough, embarrassing questions. When Joy Reid is through with her, pass her along to Chris Hayes. When he is done, pass her to Rachel Maddow. From her to Lawrence O'Donnell. Then to Stephanie Ruhle. Repeat as needed.
McDaniel calls herself a "Michigan mom" and a Christian. The E. Jean Carroll defamation case and the Stormy Daniels case are current news. Ask McDaniel what Christian mothers should say to their daughters about men like Trump grabbing and penetrating women with their fingers. Is it OK for Trump to do that? Ask McDaniel how she explains the E. Jean Carroll case to her children. How does she explain why she still supports him for president?
How should good Republican mothers explain Stormy Daniels to their daughters?
Ask McDaniel what she thinks about the audiotape of Trump bragging to Mar-a-Lago guests about having the classified documents he was waving around at the table. Do Republicans think it is OK to talk about government secrets like this? Trump says it was wrong for the FBI to have used a search warrant to retrieve them. As a good Republican, do you agree with Trump?
Mike Pence said Trump demanded that he violate the Constitution. Is violating the Constitution OK? If it is wrong to violate the Constitution, why does she trust Trump not to do it again?
Alabama says fertilized eggs are human souls. As a Christian mother and Republican, what exactly do you say to couples who want to have babies and need to use IVF?
A prudent Republican politician knows better than to put him or her self in a position to be humiliated on national news. But Ronna McDaniel signed up for that, and for only $300,000/year. It is a bargain for NBC. It would create popular segments of news shows. It would expose the way that Trump and extremists within the GOP have distorted their party.
For seven years at the RNC McDaniel helped normalize Trump's grift and lawlessness. She clearly wants to look normal and reasonable, but Trump is not normal and reasonable. She cannot scramble fast enough to avoid the simple reality that Trump and MAGA behavior are indefensible. She exposes that. The longer she sticks it out before she resigns, the better for NBC and the country.
Hire her back.
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23 comments:
The liberal legacy media would rather express its moral outrage than produce useful information that might actually have an impact on Trump’s approval ratings. What matter if your virtual signaling costs you credibility with half the country if it can gain you the approval of your elite journalistic peers?
And then they will fume and be perplexed when the next poll demonstrates that their already-catastrophically-low credibility has dropped even further. But no worries, the Columbia School of Journalism will probably award them a prize for this, so who cares what the deplorable masses think?
I don't watch FOX TV, but I do know that they have a couple of liberal commentators on their shows, including Juan Williams, who has been on FOX for a long time. FOX tries to show both sides of an issue. Not NBC.
MSNBC is a side-show for NBC News, yet it appears that the inmates from MSNBC are running the asylum at NBC. It's almost sad and funny that commentators at the step-sister station get to call the shots at the mother station. It's really a sad commentary on NBC. They should lose a lot of viewers from this fiasco. It has shown their true colors.
What is funny to me is when a liberal TV network wants to employ a "conservative", then they always hire the most liberal, RINO Republican to represent the viewpoints of all Republicans. A case in point is The View TV show. The "Republicans" on that show are mighty liberal. They don't dare put someone like Ted Cruz on their show, lest he make mince-meat of Joy Behar and Whoopie.
Ronna Romney McDaniel is an outlier of the Republican Party. She doesn't speak for the party, and she wasn't an elected politician. She was hired to run the Republican National Committee, and help Republicans get elected to office. She failed at that job, and she was fired for it.
What is really sad is that weak NBC allowed a bunch of hack MSNBC journalists make their management decisions, and they showed how intolerant they really are of other opinions. Diversity of opinions? NO! Equity for your opponents? NO! Inclusion of all opinions? NO! I would say that NBC failed big-time.
Are network news organizations in the habit of hiring people with no credibility? No
Anchors and reporters with serious credibility issues are fired. Ms. McDaniel could have been an invited guest on NBC. If she agreed to be a guest, they could have asked her all of the questions that you suggest.
Credibility is key in legitimate news organizations. Maybe she can get a paid position at Faux News or other similar fake news outlets. She can have a pod cast. She can write a book and promote it. There are lots of other things that she can do to try and redeem herself, if that is possible.
Maybe ABC and CBS News should hire Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin.
Peter, we love you but this is crazy. As stated in other comments, she can be a guest or displayed in other ways. But her hiring as a commentator suggests she has more authority, intelligence, credibility and honesty that she obviously has demonstrated she has not. Can't wait for the head of NBC News to also be fired, for her stupendously bad judgment.
Michael, what is your background in media studies?
You repeat GOPee talking points constantly.
For starters, most media outlets are owned by corporations that skew conservative.
The Rogue Valley is a news desert because of corporate greed.
If I was an employee at NBC I would not want to work with her. That's what it came down to.
She is a liar and, possibly, a criminal.
She deserves to be out of work and destitute, as so many of TFG's associates up.
I agree, whoever hired her is an idiot.
One can comment but one needs to be credible,.which she is not, in order to protect.the brand.
Kudos to NBC employees speaking up to get rid.of.tjis toxic woman.
Actions have consequences.
Fantasies are not "a different viewpoint."
McDaniel made money by lying.
BTW, management fired her
Not the other talent.
“Michael, what is your background in media studies?“
Paying attention and reading extensively for almost 70 years.
I also have no training or experience in journalism or media, but since when has any major commercial news outlet been motivated by anything other than ratings? Does anyone here seriously think that these organizations are guided by a righteous moral imperative to promote the betterment of society? It’s all about ratings. Even Trump immediately pivoted 180 when people booed him after one of his comments on COVID.
I don’t disagree that opposing voices should be heard, but not “too opposing”. Gotta keep the loyal eyeballs on the channel.
“She helped promote the Big Lie. She participated in pressuring election officials to decertify the Michigan election.”
Since when does being a liar qualify one to be a commentator? Offering alternate viewpoints is laudable, but we don’t need mainstream networks peddling Trump’s “alternative facts.” His outrageous threats and lies get enough airtime as it is.
Did Rachel Maddow recall that she repeatedly vouchsafed the provenance of the Steele dossier, while repeatedly undermining that of the 2016 election, and Hunter Biden’s laptop? Sauce for the goose….
The qualification for being a commentator is being able to present an interesting viewpoint, hopefully something new that no one else on your channel is saying. McDaniel was definitely qualified in that way, and would have added a perspective that is not commonly available on a liberal mainstream outlet like NBC.
Or instead, the liberal journalistic elites can spend from now until November talking to themselves about how deplorable everyone else is. If they get loud enough, perhaps they won’t notice that no one else is listening.
Ronna Romney's contract was for $300K per yer for 2 years ($600K total). It's clear that NBC will have to pay her that money.
News from the Ronna Romney camp this afternoon is that she's hiring a high-powered labor attorney, and she's going to sue NBC and it's employees for defamation. I would expect that Ronna is going to get a $20 million settlement from NBC from this bigoted fiasco.
Advocates of the Big Lie don't present an interesting viewpoint - just pure BS.
It is good Curt appears to understand the risks of defamation lawsuits. I block many of his proposed comments every month because of the disgusting defamatory comments he attempts to get published. Curt is a curious case. If he makes a bone Gide effort to be a candidate for office, I will publish a bundle of his comments, both the "sane" ones, plus his more extreme , obscene, and defamatory ones, so voters will have a sense of his complexity and variety. I would redact the names of the people he would be defaming.
If he ever opens his own website, I would simply direct people there.
People deep in the MAGA conspiracy world of Breitbart and NY Post readers like Curt have men making outlandish defamations, and it has cost them dearly, with more to come. Fox paid Dominion. Giuliani owes the Georgiaelection workers. Kari Zlake is being sued. I have been trying to protect Ankerberg from joining them by blocking many of his comments. Here is a post about this subject https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/27/trump-lake-defamation/?utm_campaign=wp_the_5_minute_fix&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_fix
Ankerberg has faced hardships and adversity in his health and in troubles with tax authorities. Even if he is found to have engaged in defamatory conduct, it may be impossible to collect sufficient funds to make a defamation suit worthwhile. I may be protecting him for no good purpose.
It's not about her conservative point of view.
Fantasies are not an alternate viewpoint.
Fantasies are not an alternative viewpoint.
There are plenty of conservative voices that are credible.
NBC hired her as a quid pro quo for getting the RNC to use NBC in a debate.
Truth is a defense in defamation.
I know that from MY media studies background.
She may collect for breach of contract, depending on the terms of the contract. NBC would be wise to get an NDA or else she will lie about this experience to further burnish her TFG credentials.
It's not defamation to say a person who lies is a liar.
Curt, do you know what bigot means?
Fiasco? Agreed.
Heads will roll at NBC.
Mc: Hopefully, the heads to roll because of this meat headed decision won't be the more accomplished Anchors,but the MBAs in the Big Cheese offices.
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