NBC News and MSNBC staff, including on-air personalities are reportedly “pissed” at the network’s top brass who “unanimously” decided to hire former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel despite her false statements about the 2020 election and alleged involvement in attempting to overturn the results, as Politico reports “NBC’s McDaniel mess threatens to explode.”
Public outrage online exploded when the announcement was made Friday by NBC News senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown, a former Politico editor. That anger swelled when McDaniel, as announced, appeared Sunday on the network’s top branded property, “Meet the Press,” in an awkward and controversial interview with moderator Kristen Welker. The show’s former host, Chuck Todd, told Welker on-air Sunday after the McDaniel interview that NBC News executives “owe you an apology for putting you in this situation.” Todd also denounced the hiring of McDaniel.
“’There’s a reason a lot of journalists at NBC News are uncomfortable with this,’ Todd said,” CNN reported, “explaining that under McDaniel, the RNC engaged in ‘gaslighting’ and ‘character assassination’ when dealing with the news media.”
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And yet, the hiring of McDaniel had its roots in the network’s hard-fought efforts to secure a GOP debate.
“It’s yet unclear whether the NBC-McDaniel relationship can survive the uproar. It was forged last year when NBC executives wooed her to land a Republican presidential debate, a high priority at the network. CNN had beat NBC in the race to host a Trump town hall, and securing a debate took on extra significance,” Politico noted. “Through that process McDaniel built a good rapport with NBC News executives Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of politics, and Rebecca Blumenstein, president of editorial. They secured a deal, at a price: McDaniel insisted MSNBC could not simulcast the debate.”
Taking a swipe at its competitor, CNN added: “It is unusual and widely considered unethical for a news organization to put an election denier on its payroll, never mind someone who for years has smeared the credibility of the organization and its journalists.”
Politico interviewed “executives, hosts, correspondents, and producers in the wake of Todd’s public excoriation,” which “revealed a breakdown in trust and communication among the company’s balkanized and ideologically fractured divisions.”
Amid “a growing sense inside the Washington bureau that Comcast sees its news division, which has been subject to recent layoffs and other cuts, as a divisive nuisance to be stripped down,” there was anger not only at the hiring of McDaniel, but the $300,000 price tag.
“’Across MSNBC they have been cutting contributors,’ said one of the network’s hosts. ‘So everyone’s like, what the fuck? You found 300 for her?'”
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The decision to hire McDaniel appears to have been made in a C-suite bubble, as network top executives did not consult with hosts, anchors, producers, or other staff.
“People are pissed. It is a deeply unpopular move,” one insider told Politico.
Other network hosts, like MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, also denounced McDaniel’s hiring.
“We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons,” Scarborough said Monday, The Hollywood Reporter added. Brzezinski said, “it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier, and we hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on Morning Joe in her capacity as a paid contributor.”
And now, all eyes are on Rachel Maddow, who is known to carry tremendous weight inside and outside the network.
“Network insiders are now watching to see if other hosts and contributors speak their minds, as well, with eyes particularly peeled for MSNBC’s prime-time lineup Monday, where tent-pole anchor Rachel Maddow is set go live at 9 p.m.”