Let’s start with the obvious: Any business — whether it’s a widget factory, a corner bakery or a national television network — has the right to hire whomever they want.
Now let’s add the equally obvious: For whatever reasons, the managers of a widget factory or corner bakery may make a mistake and hire someone totally unqualified. Who cares? But we demand and expect a lot more from a major television network.
Why? Because they’re national, not local. And because they’re among the top tier of the media, which — unless they’re self-proclaimed right-wing propaganda machines like Fox News or Newsmax — pride themselves on not taking sides, but just telling the truth, right down the middle. And we expect the people they hire to personify that lofty ideal.
For the most part, NBC News has met that goal. Its roster of news reporters and anchors include some of the greatest names in television history: Hugh Downs, John Chancellor, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric, Tim Russert, including today’s Lester Holt.
Which raises the question: How can NBC News justify tarnishing its reputation by hiring Ronna McDaniel, the recently-bounced head of the Republican National Committee, as a political commentator to the tune of $300,000 a year, according to Puck News? At the very least, it’s an insult to the great journalists who’ve been the face of NBC in years past and those outstanding journalists who anchor, report and produce its news shows today.
McDaniel is not just another conservative commentator. NBC already has two of those: Mark Short, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence; and Brendan Buck, former counsel to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). McDaniel played a much more significant role. For years she was the leading voice of the Republican Party. For the last four years, she repeated and spread Donald Trump’s “big lie” that he, not Joe Biden, won the 2020 election. Not only that, as RNC chair, she joined Trump in a phone call to election officials in Michigan, urging them not to certify that state’s election outcome.
Making her first appearance on NBC on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” McDaniel finally agreed that Biden won the election and disagreed with Trump’s plan to pardon the Jan. 6 criminals. But when pressed by host Kristen Welker for not speaking out sooner, McDaniel dismissed her previous statements as “taking one for the team” — an excuse that was immediately slammed by former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.): “That’s not ‘taking one for the team.’ It’s enabling criminality and depravity.”
But McDaniel didn’t just echo Trump’s election lies, she was also his partner in attacking the media as “fake news” and, here’s the weird part, directing most of her venom at NBC and MSNBC, which she denounced as full of “primetime propagandists.” And NBC’s rewarded McDaniel by paying her to join their team? It’s like inviting a rattlesnake into your own home.
Saner voices at the network agree this was a huge mistake. Rashida Jones, president of MSNBC, said McDaniel would never appear on that network. Joe Scarborough vowed she’d never be invited on “Morning Joe.” Chuck Todd bravely blasted his own network and demanded they apologize to Welker for making her interview McDaniel as a paid contributor on “Meet the Press.”
There couldn’t be a worse time for NBC to destroy its reputation for honesty and fairness. And there’s only one way to fix it: Fire Ronna McDaniel as fast as they hired her.
Press hosts “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”