The backlash to NBC hiring Ronna McDaniel is how we change corporate media content!
***UPDATE March 26: Due to the pressure of you, me and everyone else, NBC News terminated their relationship with former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel. This was 100% because of us. If we didn’t vow to boycott MSNBC, this never happens. It’s a great lesson for us that we can and must pressure corporate media to ensure that they do NOT normalize those involved in Trump’s attempted coup and/or Jan 6 terrorist attack!***
The backlash to NBC News hiring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel has been remarkable—in a great way. It’s already impacting on air content—which is the goal. And the best part of this is that all of it started because of people like you and I outraged that NBC News would hire McDaniel, who was far worse than just an election denier who repeatedly called the 2020 election “rigged.” She was personally involved in Trump’s attempted coup.
As a reminder, on Nov. 17, 2020, she and then-President Trump called two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers urging them not to sign a certification that Joe Biden had won their county’s election. In that call, Trump told the election officials that "we can't let these people take our country away from us" and McDaniel stated, “do not sign it…We will get you attorneys." After that phone call, the two Republican election officials tried (unsuccessfully) to rescind their certification of the election results based on what McDaniel and Trump had told them.
In addition, the RNC under her leadership--as McDaniel testified to before the Jan 6 committee-helped the Trump campaign assemble “contingent” electors (aka fake electors) after the 2020 election.
As RNC chair, she sought to cover up Trump’s Jan 6 attack. For example, she led the passage of an RNC resolution in 2022 that called Trump’s Jan 6 attack on the Capitol where more than 140 police officers were injured as being "legitimate political discourse." And the RNC passed a resolution that censured Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for working on the Jan 6 House committee investigating the attack. (Liz Cheney responded to NBC News hiring McDaniel by noting that the former RNC chair helped Trump by “enabling criminality & depravity.”)
McDaniel also did her best to delegitimize media outlets that criticized Trump, for example, accusing MSNBC as of “spreading lies” and employing ‘prime time propagandists.’
In the past, the hiring of a person like McDaniel might have been met with some grumbling but not a massive backlash. That is likely what the top brass at NBC expected—especially given that McDaniel’s hiring was reportedly “unanimously” agreed to by both NBC News and MSNBC’s top execs. But what they got was far, far worse.
The grassroots criticism of McDaniel’s hiring was swift, loud and ferocious. People shared online the receipts of what McDaniel had said and done, causing other news outlets to cover it. Even the DNC joined the criticism, with DNC chair Jamie Harrison publishing a statement calling McDaniel one of the “key architects” of Trump’s attempted coup and slamming McDaniel as “a proven liar” who “has no place in an honest and objective conversation about the future of this country.”
The deafening calls for boycotts of NBC and MSNBC were soon being heard by the top executives at the network. By Saturday night, MNSBC’s top executive was saying McDaniel would not appear on their air.
On Sunday, NBC News’ Chuck Todd used an appearance on “Meet the Press” to slam NBC executives for hiring McDaniel’s, explaining that “many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination.” (When Chuck Todd has become a voice of reason you know things are bad!)
By Monday morning, MNSBC host Joe Scarborough stated on his show that if they had been asked in advance, they would have strongly objected to hiring McDaniel given her role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Co-host Mika Brzezinski added, “It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on Morning Joe in her capacity as a paid contributor.”
Don’t be surprised if NBC News—who is reportedly paying McDaniel $300,000 a year—ends up quietly benching her. That means she gets in effect a “no show” job with a fat paycheck. Or they could--like NBC News did with Megyn Kelly in 2019 after that debacle—end the deal by paying her the full contract fee.
But let’s take a step back. For decades, the right has impacted media content by being loudly critical of anything in corporate media they didn’t like. As people like Angelo Carusone—the head of Media Matters, a media watchdog organization—has discussed on my SiriusXM radio show numerous times: This is called “working the refs.”
The right has long worked “the refs”—the people in charge of corporate media—to alter content to be less critical of Republicans as well as cover stories consistent with the GOP crafted media narrative that helps them. We have all heard the lie of “liberal media bias.” That concept has long been used as a cudgel to pressure networks to do the GOP’s bidding.
And has been the response of the left? In general, we would defend the corporate media—especially when terrorist Donald Trump was calling them the “enemy of the people” and vowing to shutdown media outlets. It’s understandable because at its best, the media is known as “the fourth estate” where through robust and unbiased journalism it provides a check and balance of the other three branches of government.
But here’s the reality of where we stand today: The corporate media is not our friend. It’s also not our enemy. Corporate media is about one thing: Making a profit. Think of corporate media as being no different than big pharmaceutical companies. Forget any sense of corporate media being some type of guardrail of democracy or a check on the people in power. It’s simply a vessel to make money.
And in the corporate media world, profits are made primarily by ad sales. That means the higher the ratings or clicks, the more they can charge advertisers.
Nothing better sums this up like the comments of then head of CBS Les Moonves during the 2016 campaign: Trump “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” Moonves continued, “The money’s rolling in, this is fun…I’ve never seen anything like this and this is going to be a very good year for us.” The former CBS head honcho added, “It’s a terrible thing to say, but bring it on, Donald, go ahead, keep going.”
Of course, there are some great journalists who work in corporate media. But they are compelled to navigate in a corporate media world where revenue is king. That is why the widespread calls for a boycott of MSNBC by the very people who watch the channel—us on the left—resulted in McDaniel being barred from the network. And if McDaniel is finally cut loose from NBC News, it will not be because the executives were suddenly upset by her history of lies, coup, etc. It will be solely because keeping McDaniel around hurts ratings and revenue.
This is a great lesson for us. We have the power to impact corporate media content. And given the stakes in the 2024 election, we must continually do just that by loudly calling out any efforts to normalize those who were part of Trump’s attempted coup. This is how we can play a vital role in defeating the fascism of MAGA and preserving our democratic Republic.
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