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. Even still, the smell hasn’t left the building. It’s going to take a while for the story to come out about how and why McDaniel was hired as a political commentator for the network. The former Chair of the Republican National Committee, McDaniel is a Trump mouthpiece who was complicit in the campaign to overturn the 2020 election results and regularly repeated Trump’s lies that the election had been “rigged.” She was also part of Trump’s years-long effort to denigrate the news media that covered him while he was president and as he masterminded the attempted coup to prevent the certification of electoral ballots and the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election.
It always comes back to money. Put the finance Nazis in charge and the lens of all decisions becomes financial. Ratings always matter, but news no longer is seen as a public service - just another way to ramp up shareholder value. Look what happened at Boeing.
“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.
Mar 27·edited Mar 27Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
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..."
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!😀
Mar 27·edited Mar 27Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
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.
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.
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.
"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?
It always comes back to money. Put the finance Nazis in charge and the lens of all decisions becomes financial. Ratings always matter, but news no longer is seen as a public service - just another way to ramp up shareholder value. Look what happened at Boeing.
“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 am glad she is gone. McDaniel is and was a liar and seditionist. She belongs behind bars with the orange one.
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..."
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!😀
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 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.
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?
She changed her name for Drumpf!! Asskisser of the first order!
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.
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.
Ronna will be parodied on SNL this week, hopefully at the News Desk