Kristen Welker and Chuck Todd deliver a clear message to the NBC News C-suite
CNN’s excellent media reporter Oliver Darcy’s take around an important and electrifying moment on “Meet the Press” didn’t read quite right to me. The compass-bearing was off by a few degrees by my estimation.
Here is what I saw. Chuck Todd defended the NBC newsroom and every journalist who works there, with a shattering rebuke of “the bosses” who desecrated ethics and standards, while abusing the public trust, truth and the audience. Chuck Todd didn’t “rip” NBC News, which is the sum of its journalists, legacy and history.
Below is the CNN lede:
Chuck Todd rips NBC News for hiring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel
Former “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd delivered a stunning rebuke of NBC News on Sunday, blasting the network for hiring former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid political analyst.
Todd, who serves as the network’s chief political analyst, delivered his scathing criticism after McDaniel made her debut on the network during an interview with current “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker.
“There’s a reason a lot of journalists at NBC News are uncomfortable with this,” Todd said, explaining that under McDaniel, the RNC engaged in “gaslighting” and “character assassination” when dealing with the news media.
The point that CNN’s Oliver Darcy seems to be missing through the lens of competitive vertigo is that Chuck Todd and Kristen Welker are NBC News.
What happened on Sunday was an act of defiance, principle and moral courage that respected the finest traditions of NBC News. Chuck Todd was fearless in an age of resplendent cowardice where the weasel’s way seems like the only way for most powerful people in America. Think about the disgrace and absurdity of Chuck Schumer who properly rails about the obscenity of Donald Trump, while then saying this about Bob Menendez:
Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey. He has a right to due process and a fair trial.
The abdications of principle and belief are currency in our cynical age. What it has produced is a warped public square teeming with bloviators and unprincipled charlatans like Lindsey Graham, who believe in nothing except the maintenance of their office, position and status.
Apparently, according to Puck News, the Ronna McDaniel contract was the result of the “strong rapport and inside baseball camaraderie” developed between McDaniel and NBC SVP for politics and election coverage Carrie Budoff Brown. McDaniel also got to know Rebecca Blumenstein, a “fellow Michigander,” who heads NBC News editorial.
This shouldn’t be surprising from two of the four NBC executives — the other two are chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group Cesar Conde and MSNBC president Rashida Jones — who are recent hires into an NBC News culture steeped in journalistic ethics. Rebecca Blumenstein is a recent arrival from The New York Times, where management celebrated Maggie Haberman’s access journalism as heroic because the show was good for business and clicks. The brokenness of the journalism culture at Eighth Avenue has been extensively documented of late by former reporters, including Adam Rubenstein in The Atlantic and James Bennet in The Economist. What is now happening at NBC seems to be the equivalent of a transplanted organ being rejected from a human body.
The same holds true for Budoff Brown, who said this about McDaniel in the announcement that she would be joining NBC News platforms as a paid contributor:
It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team.
Budoff Brown’s quote was the preface to that of McDaniel on yesterday’s edition of “Meet the Press:”
When you are the RNC chair, sometimes you have to take one for the whole team, right?
Both stand as totems of absurdity and instant classics in an age of dishonesty that will be long remembered. They are instantaneously infamous markers of the collapse of duty and the disintegration of responsibility over any sense of professional responsibility, duty and patriotism.
Chuck Todd took a different path, and in doing so, he filled some very big shoes. Very big.
Kristen Welker didn’t need defending from Chuck Todd, but she deserved it because they share a mutuality of responsibility because they work in the business of trust. When Chuck Todd said Kristen Welker was owed an apology by NBC News’ C-suite he couldn’t have been more right. The fact that she handled the impossibility of the situation with class and grace does not mitigate the affront and lack of judgement that risked her reputation for probity and rectitude.
Welker handled Ronna McDaniel like an old west sheriff defending her own from a menacing encroachment. She dissected the dishonesty, cut through the dissembling, exposed the inconsistencies, identified the core issues and exposed Ronna McDaniel for what she is, which Oliver Darcy got precisely correct:
As RNC chair, McDaniel was a prominent election denier, working to help disgraced former President Donald Trump subvert the 2020 vote. She also has a long track record for demonizing the news media, including launching ugly attacks on NBC News journalists and MSNBC hosts.
It is unusual and widely considered unethical for a news organization to put an election denier on its payroll, never mind someone who for years has smeared the credibility of the organization and its journalists.
Welker disclosed at the top of her Sunday morning program that the interview was scheduled to take place prior to NBC News announcing McDaniel would be a paid contributor. Welker also said she was not involved in McDaniel’s hiring.
Chuck Todd did a big thing for journalism on Sunday, March 24, 2024. So did Kristen Welker.
Both sent a message, and it was loud and clear. The truth shall not go gently into the night at NBC News.
Let me just say on a personal note that I have known Chuck Todd for a very long time as a campaign manager, White House official, and later, as a colleague. He is a good man and an honest one. Yesterday, I was in awe. What a moment. Profiles in courage must be noted and appreciated because they are rare in our cynical age. Chuck Todd and Kristen Welker did something extraordinary yesterday.
On Friday, NBC News was disgraced by the actions of its executives who cavalierly discarded its reputation, ethics and standards.
On Sunday, Welker and Todd turned a cynical farce into one of NBC News’ finest moments.
Ronna McDaniel won’t be back.
The truth won on Sunday, and both Chuck Todd and Kristen Welker are owed the gratitude of all who care about the truth. These are people who can be trusted. They earned it.
Morning Joe’s hosts Mika and Joe stated, a few minutes ago, that they were not consulted in the hiring of Ronna McDaniel, were not told of the hire and heard about like everybody else. They also stated they would have vehemently objected if they had been asked their opinion and that she will not, big emphasis on not, be on their show. Historian John Meacham, in less strident language, essentially agreed, stating that she lacks any moral standing and her idea of “ taking one for the team” in this case is anti democratic. They all agreed that they welcome diverse political views, but lying, not accepting the results of an election, and still doing so unacceptable.
Eff Rona and her pathetic lying on behalf of Trumpler, the oily orange, pathologically lying sociopath and his cadre of spineless bootlickers, of which she is a member in high-standing. Can anyone say, “NBC bye bye?” If choosing this GOP witch is an indication of NBC’s perspective at this “break glass moment,” I turn the channel now never to return. Fire Rona, give her a damn parachute for the admittedly stupid mistake, own it loudly and move on. WTF- history is watching!