Missing: One backbone — if found, please return to NBC management.
In less than a week, NBCUniversal News Group hired and then un-hired former Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel as a political commentator — caving to the unhinged whining of on-air NBC and MSNBC “talent.”
Rachel Maddow on her MSBNC show called the hire “inexplicable”; Chuck Todd returned to “Meet the Press” to denounce McDaniel’s “credibility issues”; Mika Brzezinski of “Morning Joe” slammed her as an “anti-democracy election denier.”
This at a company that secretly hired Jen Psaki when she was still President Biden’s spokesliar (vouching for the ethical “safeguards” of Hunter’s art sales, for one of many laughers), broadcasts the reality-denying Joy Reid — and whose hosts generally ate up every bit of “Russiagate” disinformation and the whole “the laptop is a Russian plant” fabrication.
Heck, how does McDaniel have less “credibility” than serial-lying, ex-spook MSNBC regular commenters James Clapper and John Brennan?
Yet NBC bosses caved Tuesday, giving McDaniel the boot and apologizing.
OK, this isn’t as outrageous as The New York Times in 2020 firing oped staffer Adam Rubenstein and Editorial Page Editor James Bennett to appease lefty staff melting down over a GOP senator’s opinion column, nor The Atlantic’s un-hiring of righty writer Kevin Williamson in 2018 amid a similar staff revolt.
But it’s beyond pathetic that NBC’s brass brought in one voice to counter its vast left-of-center stable, then retreated because a bunch of pampered millionaires whined.
It’s no wonder that public trust in the media keeps hitting new lows.