It took NBC five days to dig one of those big walk-behind floor sweepers out of a supply closet and get it running down the hall on the C-suite floor at 30 Rock where the detritus of the Ronna McDaniel hiring was beginning to turn putrid.
The problem is endemic to BIG media. Remember Chris Licht? Put in place by David Zaslav whose good friend John Malone thought it would be a good idea to pull in more right-wingers. Apparently hiring Ronna McDaniel was done in this same vein. John Malone's good friend is Rupert Murdoch
The folks in the executive suites are not necessarily Progressive or Liberals. Although they may know their numbers, they don't really seem to know how much their audience can stomach. Blumenstein is former NYT and Budoff Brown is former Politico neither of which organizations are known as progressive or liberal.
Their boss is Cesar Conde who was with NBCU International Group and NBCU Telemundo Enterprises prior to becoming Chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group in May 2020. In this role, Conde has oversight of NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC. It's highly Likely that he signed off on the Ronna McDaniel hire. https://www.linkedin.com/in/conde-cesar/
Cesar's boss is Brian Roberts Chairman and CEO of Comcast. It's unknown if he had input or signed off on the Ronna McDaniel hire. But he's likely a card carrying member of the RNC
Likely we won't see the same missteps from Disney (ABC) or CBS as they don't really care as much about Progressives and Liberals based on the shows they broadcast. But make no mistake, their executive suites and board rooms are full of right-wingers not all that different from Zaslav
My guess is Roberts had no part in this move. A hire would be beneath his pay grade. He’s at the very top of this heap. IF he’s really unhappy about it, he’ll can the old head of Telemundo who made the decision. This is just my opinion, but it never computed that the head of NBC would be someone from a Spanish language network.
An interesting piece of NBC Media trivia. Zaslav worked with Roger Ailes at the NBC affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio about the time Nixon was running for President the 2nd time around (1968). Must have had some fascinating conversations.
Exactly. I would have thought that such lousy judgment was more likely to occur at hapless CNN, but maybe they did learn a lesson after the Trump town hall. And when you think about it, the lousy judgment at NBC goes way back - at least as far as 2008 when they replaced the legendary Tim Russert with [yawn] David Gregory of all people, and when he had finally bored us all to death, replaced him with company man Chuck Todd (whose single bright moment until last Sunday was calling out Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts"). Props to LKTIV for calling him what he is, a hack pundit (and more props for the title of this article, which gave me a serious case of the giggles).
“There aren’t two sides when it comes to fascism.” Lucian, you summed it up. This mania for “two sides to every story” has bankrupted newspapers and news organizations. I’ve been dumbfounded by NYT coverage of Trump and Biden. For one thing, they need to fire Maggie Haberman. She is Trump’s mouthpiece, nothing more. His side of the story is all she can report, because he demands loyalty. If she isn’t loyal to him, he cuts off her access. And these news organizations are too damn scared to write: We will no longer be quoting Donald Trump, because getting those quotes requires the loyalty to him of our reporters. And that is unacceptable to us.
I agree Lorraine, Maggie Haberman is overdue to be shown the door. Whenever I see her name under an article title I move on. Though my memories might be faulty on this, I seem to remember prior to the orange addled moron that Maggie was capable of some good work. She hitched her wagon to the wrong guy. I just wonder, what would redemption look like for someone like her?
Getting access one final time and writing a scorching TRUTHFUL article--that includes all of Trump's dark side--might achieve those all-important first steps toward redemption.
The hiring of a “ rancid fascist” will not leave me lightly.I was glad that the MSNBC greats and others in the network loudly denounced the hiring of Ronna Romney Mc. It still really galls me that this network would even consider such a hire. Et tu NBC?
I was really upset when they fired the gifted Mehdi Hasan, who packs more information in 10 minutes than some other MSNBC guy does in hours. They force him to quit and then hire another Trump thug.
Repeat: thug
"NEW YORK (AP) — Prominent Muslim journalist Mehdi Hasan has decided to quit MSNBC rather than accept a demotion that saw him lose a regular Sunday night program on the network..."
I agree with you on Mehdi Hasan. I enjoyed his shows. He was concise and he did pack in the information. I always went away from watching him more knowledgeable than before.
There is one side, the truth! Liars don’t belong in the media! Thank goodness NBC retracted the deal!
I was out last night and missed all the dissatisfaction especially Rachel Maddow! I was at the 92nd Street Y in NY City listening to “Healing a Divided Nation” with Jamie Raskin, David Jolly and Steve Israel. I bought Jamie Raskin’s new book, UNTHINKABLE and he autographed it in front of me so I was able to speak to him! It was an exciting evening! He is my hero!
He said we are going to beat Trump hard, get the House back however, wasn’t sure about the Senate! Jaime was looking well, had a sense of humor and a lovely smile!😀
Omg, you're right. It's all too easy to imagine McDaniel listed alongside Douthat and Stevens on the nyt op-ed roster. She's just the Opinion section's RW type.
The NYT and any of the traditional media are in complete denial if they believe they will be ‘safe’ if the orange pustule wins again. They’ve been playing with fire this whole time by putting their asinine attention on how old Biden is but not on the MULTITUDE of crimes, discrepancies, lies, threats and insanity of the worst president in history.
Bravo Lucian. Once that horror was announced, I didn’t believe it would withstand the blowback. Evidently NBC doesn’t have a grasp of the principled outrage held in high esteem by its anchors. Any of us could have told them that hiring Ronna McDowney was NOT like hiring Nicole Wallace. Clearly the executive suite isn’t close enough to its own anchors to predict their reactions. This situation does not bode well for the network. As Rachael says, watch this space.
It’s good for Romney, she gets to be a victim and will probably be welcomed with open arms back into the MAGA camp where she was at least a bit on the outs.
She admitted, finally, that Biden is the legitimate president, that he won the election. That won’t make her very welcome in MAGA circles or with *Rump.
The fallout from this oh-so-sorry episode isn’t done I suspect. Should those two other NBC women who orchestrated this hiring with the no doubt approval of even higher higher-ups be fired? If NBC was the only network in pursuit of McDaniel that would be an easy call. But there was a competition between NBC, ABC, and CNN as if she was a very desirable prospect. What does that say about the rot and values in the MSM. It says the culture in all three networks is rotten. Firing those two women, who were only doing what they knew their bosses wanted, which means the rot goes much higher up to the corporate ladder to the untouchables. There was a time, now long ago, when news divisions at networks were separate, not considered a profit center as they are now, or just an extension of their entertainment programming with ratings and the bottom line the primary considerations. How far away from those days we are. A reasonable question to ask is whether this McDaniel debacle will serve as a wake-up call, a partial reset, to all the legacy networks, except for Fox of course, to look for honorable reputations, intelligence, credibility and integrity in their hires. And not only potential ratings and celebrity status. Let’s see where McDaniel winds up. That will be very telling.
Since it's NBC would be shocked if SNL News Desk doesn't do a routine incorporating Ronna into The Huntley-Brinkley Report and tie it into Ronna interviewing SNL's Trump which lends itself to be shit-canned twice in rapid fire
Hope they avoid Scaramucci's lame time measurement.
This would have been a fun story if it wasn't so damned sick. It seems all of the mainstream media that by profession I have embraced, has screwed up in profoundly different ways: the unreadable, sex-obsessed Times, the one-note boredom of MSNBC, directionless CNN. A new generation has taken over; to paraphrase what we used to say: "Don't trust anyone under 50."
I'm so old that I remember that phrase. When the dude who coined it turned 30 he began saying "Don't trust anyone under 30." True story. It reeks of "I alone can fix it" BS.
"How does this kind of trainwreck happen at a distinguished television network, you might ask?"
Two women with lousy judgment who didn't deserve to have the jobs they had at NBC is how.
Maybe they'll be the next to go.
And can't you just imagine the ABC and CNN brass feeling as though they dodged a bullet?
Thanks for letting us know , Lucian, who are the responsible people for this hire. I hope you are right Margo, and they are the next ones to go!
The problem is endemic to BIG media. Remember Chris Licht? Put in place by David Zaslav whose good friend John Malone thought it would be a good idea to pull in more right-wingers. Apparently hiring Ronna McDaniel was done in this same vein. John Malone's good friend is Rupert Murdoch
The folks in the executive suites are not necessarily Progressive or Liberals. Although they may know their numbers, they don't really seem to know how much their audience can stomach. Blumenstein is former NYT and Budoff Brown is former Politico neither of which organizations are known as progressive or liberal.
Their boss is Cesar Conde who was with NBCU International Group and NBCU Telemundo Enterprises prior to becoming Chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group in May 2020. In this role, Conde has oversight of NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC. It's highly Likely that he signed off on the Ronna McDaniel hire. https://www.linkedin.com/in/conde-cesar/
Cesar's boss is Brian Roberts Chairman and CEO of Comcast. It's unknown if he had input or signed off on the Ronna McDaniel hire. But he's likely a card carrying member of the RNC
https://www.businessroundtable.org/about-us/members/brian-l-roberts-chairman-chief-executive-officer-comcast-corporation
Likely we won't see the same missteps from Disney (ABC) or CBS as they don't really care as much about Progressives and Liberals based on the shows they broadcast. But make no mistake, their executive suites and board rooms are full of right-wingers not all that different from Zaslav
As I think about it, wouldn’t you think McDaniel was a no-brainer for Fox?
Apparently Fox is cheap
They’ve got enough trouble coming with smartmatics, a “wise” decision to steer clear
My guess is Roberts had no part in this move. A hire would be beneath his pay grade. He’s at the very top of this heap. IF he’s really unhappy about it, he’ll can the old head of Telemundo who made the decision. This is just my opinion, but it never computed that the head of NBC would be someone from a Spanish language network.
An interesting piece of NBC Media trivia. Zaslav worked with Roger Ailes at the NBC affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio about the time Nixon was running for President the 2nd time around (1968). Must have had some fascinating conversations.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/when-roger-ailes-and-i-didnt-make?
Exactly. I would have thought that such lousy judgment was more likely to occur at hapless CNN, but maybe they did learn a lesson after the Trump town hall. And when you think about it, the lousy judgment at NBC goes way back - at least as far as 2008 when they replaced the legendary Tim Russert with [yawn] David Gregory of all people, and when he had finally bored us all to death, replaced him with company man Chuck Todd (whose single bright moment until last Sunday was calling out Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts"). Props to LKTIV for calling him what he is, a hack pundit (and more props for the title of this article, which gave me a serious case of the giggles).
“There aren’t two sides when it comes to fascism.” Lucian, you summed it up. This mania for “two sides to every story” has bankrupted newspapers and news organizations. I’ve been dumbfounded by NYT coverage of Trump and Biden. For one thing, they need to fire Maggie Haberman. She is Trump’s mouthpiece, nothing more. His side of the story is all she can report, because he demands loyalty. If she isn’t loyal to him, he cuts off her access. And these news organizations are too damn scared to write: We will no longer be quoting Donald Trump, because getting those quotes requires the loyalty to him of our reporters. And that is unacceptable to us.
Here's a quote from Maureen to someone who shared my column on the Lion's Head list:
"this story is such horseshit
msnbc is full of war criminals
is nicole wallace pushing the irsq war with lies, and sarah palin with lies any better? and she's their darling.
also, guess what?
biden IS old!!
There you go. Maureen Dowd in her own words. And they're paying her in the mid six figures to write her hack shit once a week.
I agree Lorraine, Maggie Haberman is overdue to be shown the door. Whenever I see her name under an article title I move on. Though my memories might be faulty on this, I seem to remember prior to the orange addled moron that Maggie was capable of some good work. She hitched her wagon to the wrong guy. I just wonder, what would redemption look like for someone like her?
Getting access one final time and writing a scorching TRUTHFUL article--that includes all of Trump's dark side--might achieve those all-important first steps toward redemption.
If only…
I am glad she is gone. McDaniel is and was a liar and seditionist. She belongs behind bars with the orange one.
They both deserve far worse than Prison. They deserve the punishment given to traitors.
The hiring of a “ rancid fascist” will not leave me lightly.I was glad that the MSNBC greats and others in the network loudly denounced the hiring of Ronna Romney Mc. It still really galls me that this network would even consider such a hire. Et tu NBC?
Something is rotten at NBC.
I was really upset when they fired the gifted Mehdi Hasan, who packs more information in 10 minutes than some other MSNBC guy does in hours. They force him to quit and then hire another Trump thug.
Repeat: thug
"NEW YORK (AP) — Prominent Muslim journalist Mehdi Hasan has decided to quit MSNBC rather than accept a demotion that saw him lose a regular Sunday night program on the network..."
I agree with you on Mehdi Hasan. I enjoyed his shows. He was concise and he did pack in the information. I always went away from watching him more knowledgeable than before.
You can read/watch Mehdi Hasan here in Substack. This link will take you to the Substack sign up page: https://zeteo.com/
Thank you!
You can read/watch Mehdi Hasan here in Substack. This link will take you to the Substack sign up page: https://zeteo.com/
There is one side, the truth! Liars don’t belong in the media! Thank goodness NBC retracted the deal!
I was out last night and missed all the dissatisfaction especially Rachel Maddow! I was at the 92nd Street Y in NY City listening to “Healing a Divided Nation” with Jamie Raskin, David Jolly and Steve Israel. I bought Jamie Raskin’s new book, UNTHINKABLE and he autographed it in front of me so I was able to speak to him! It was an exciting evening! He is my hero!
He said we are going to beat Trump hard, get the House back however, wasn’t sure about the Senate! Jaime was looking well, had a sense of humor and a lovely smile!😀
Jamie Raskin = MENSCH.
UNTHINKABLE is a moving, wonderful, inspiring book!
Well said, and one of the reasons I dropped my subscription to WAPO and the NYT last month. I’m having a hard time with all this BS.
I hope you told them why you were cancelling.
I was listening to Smerconish do his usual equivocating.
He always talks of fairness and points of view.
Lies are not opinions they are lies.
Fascist are fascists and equivocators are facilitators.
They are more disgusting than Trump who is mentally ill.
Omg, you're right. It's all too easy to imagine McDaniel listed alongside Douthat and Stevens on the nyt op-ed roster. She's just the Opinion section's RW type.
Douthat and Stevens the equivalent of a vinyl record that repeatedly skips and same shit different day. Both things can be true at the same time.
The NYT and any of the traditional media are in complete denial if they believe they will be ‘safe’ if the orange pustule wins again. They’ve been playing with fire this whole time by putting their asinine attention on how old Biden is but not on the MULTITUDE of crimes, discrepancies, lies, threats and insanity of the worst president in history.
Bravo Lucian. Once that horror was announced, I didn’t believe it would withstand the blowback. Evidently NBC doesn’t have a grasp of the principled outrage held in high esteem by its anchors. Any of us could have told them that hiring Ronna McDowney was NOT like hiring Nicole Wallace. Clearly the executive suite isn’t close enough to its own anchors to predict their reactions. This situation does not bode well for the network. As Rachael says, watch this space.
So, now they can bring back Mehdi Hassan?
That guy is the best interviewer this side of Isaac Chotiner and needs his own platform.
You can read/watch Mehdi Hasan here in Substack. This link will take you to the Substack sign up page: https://zeteo.com/
Thank you!
Oh…I hope so!
Too late, he quit.
You can read/watch Mehdi Hasan here in Substack. This link will take you to the Substack sign up page: https://zeteo.com/
She changed her name for Drumpf!! Asskisser of the first order!
I wonder if she still speaks with her father. Mitt is probably horrified that his daughter is a maggot.
Mitt is actually her uncle. It doesn’t make her any better. Maybe Mitt’s relieved though!
Thanks for the clarification. I do know she was asked to drop ‘Romney’ from her name.
Uncle Mitt, not dad
Thanks for clarifying this.
It’s good for Romney, she gets to be a victim and will probably be welcomed with open arms back into the MAGA camp where she was at least a bit on the outs.
She admitted, finally, that Biden is the legitimate president, that he won the election. That won’t make her very welcome in MAGA circles or with *Rump.
Oops
The fallout from this oh-so-sorry episode isn’t done I suspect. Should those two other NBC women who orchestrated this hiring with the no doubt approval of even higher higher-ups be fired? If NBC was the only network in pursuit of McDaniel that would be an easy call. But there was a competition between NBC, ABC, and CNN as if she was a very desirable prospect. What does that say about the rot and values in the MSM. It says the culture in all three networks is rotten. Firing those two women, who were only doing what they knew their bosses wanted, which means the rot goes much higher up to the corporate ladder to the untouchables. There was a time, now long ago, when news divisions at networks were separate, not considered a profit center as they are now, or just an extension of their entertainment programming with ratings and the bottom line the primary considerations. How far away from those days we are. A reasonable question to ask is whether this McDaniel debacle will serve as a wake-up call, a partial reset, to all the legacy networks, except for Fox of course, to look for honorable reputations, intelligence, credibility and integrity in their hires. And not only potential ratings and celebrity status. Let’s see where McDaniel winds up. That will be very telling.
Excellent insight, sir (oops: 'sir alert'!) I agree...where McDaniel lands will be a big 'tell'.
Ronna will be parodied on SNL this week, hopefully at the News Desk
Excellent point, have to be sure to catch that live, or "just google SNL highlights."
Shadowcloud, I'm fairly certain that you could produce half a dozen killer punchlines by Saturday.
lol. Would you settle for 3, my Friend?
Since it's NBC would be shocked if SNL News Desk doesn't do a routine incorporating Ronna into The Huntley-Brinkley Report and tie it into Ronna interviewing SNL's Trump which lends itself to be shit-canned twice in rapid fire
Hope they avoid Scaramucci's lame time measurement.
I count 3 right there.
You have keen sight and insight, M.T. Be proud.
That's an exceedingly kind compliment thank you very much.
This would have been a fun story if it wasn't so damned sick. It seems all of the mainstream media that by profession I have embraced, has screwed up in profoundly different ways: the unreadable, sex-obsessed Times, the one-note boredom of MSNBC, directionless CNN. A new generation has taken over; to paraphrase what we used to say: "Don't trust anyone under 50."
Actually, the phrase we coined nearly fifty years ago was: "Don't trust anybody over 30"!
My how our perspective has aged!
I'm so old that I remember that phrase. When the dude who coined it turned 30 he began saying "Don't trust anyone under 30." True story. It reeks of "I alone can fix it" BS.
Yes, Babette. That was my paraphrased punchline.
You are right Babette, I remember that phrase well, and then we turned 30.......;-)