Crisis at NBC News: Steve Schmidt

[Joinfortmill]

https://steveschmidt.substack.com/p/crisis-at-nbc-news

'Soon, every detail around what happened inside the executive suites at NBC/MSNBC around the hiring, backlash and disappearance of Ronna McDaniel from MSNBC before she could tell her first lie, will be known...Agents, anchors and reporters will work their iPhones, texting and spinning their version of the moment they found out credibility didn’t matter to the executives.

There comes a moment when something terrible is going to happen. It will shock our conscience and hearts. Perhaps it will terrify us, and maybe people will lie about the matter to seek advantage in a way that could hurt all of us. Maybe, just maybe, there will be an hour of grave danger during which a terrible menace bears down on democracy. Imagine a lawless president who tries to intimidate the media, or shut down a broadcast network. That could never ever happen in America, right? It is as crazy as a president triggering an insurrection, or inciting violence, or calling for a campaign of revenge. Nothing like that could ever happen because in the United States the news would tell us, right?..

Lester Holt matters in America, and so does Savannah Guthrie, because they have over many long years established the credibility necessary to lead global news coverage from a desk in New York City to tell the American people what is happening upon the occasion of the darkest hours. It is a great responsibility and a profound public trust. This is why the vapid, dishonest disgrace that dared say the following on Meet the Press as an NBC News employee, responding to why she stayed silent and indifferent as the chairwoman of the third oldest political party in the world when Trump promised to release scores of violent felons who staged a coup: When you are the RNC chair, sometimes you have to take one for the whole team, right?

McDaniel should never appear on television with a serious NBC journalist as a colleague...Yet, the mix of stupidity, cynicism and incompetence that led to the hiring, and Jones’ ability and agility to scramble away from it has left NBC News holding a giant steaming pile of, well…Heads will roll, as they say."

My words: I did my best to print the gems, but read the entire piece, folks. It's worth it. Note: Bold is mine.

[cilla4progress]

1. Coincidentally, I find myself more often than not lately

turning to these guys..and other independent media!

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Been tiring of the outrage porn on MSNBC. They do have amazing guests, however.

[Wild blueberry]

8. Me, too!

Meidas Touch, Glenn Kirschner, and Brian Tyler Cohen are among the best independent voices.
Am gravitating more and more to independent journalists, and subscribing to them as well.
Thank you!

[jaxexpat]

25. These, and other, means for factual dissemination will thrive so long as there is viability nurtured by need.

The age of network domination is over, as is the faith-believed promise of capitalism and the age of fair competition to amass generational wealth. Insofar as the latter ever really existed at all. Those three keystones of mid-century Americana were always joined at the hip, not the head or heart, anyway.

That noise we hear is the "bigger they are" falling, hard.

[Lonestarblue]

2. Her hiring shows just how much mainstream media is in the bag for Republicans.

[SupportSanity]

3. Will we ever find out why they thought that

hiring Ronna McDaniel to appear on MSNBC was a good idea?

[colorado_ufo]

10. Makes me physically ill.

[czarjak]

21. Ronna thought it was swell.

Ka-ching. Ka-ching.

[sop]

26. Maybe NBC hired her to dish dirt on Trump after everything he did to get her fired at the RNC.

It's why all the other news and commentary shows have former Trump (liars) officials on: to trash Trump while they write their tell-all books. I can't imagine NBC would hire her for access to Trump, or to defend his actions.

[gordianot]

4. Jolly Roger must be getting a hearty laugh in Hell.

[Bev54]

5. Well she wasn't on with a serious journalist, she was on with Kristen Welker and it was made obvious today

by Chucky Todd that she has no independence in her guests and so to me her entire show is not serious. I have never watched it and stopped a few years ago with Todd's both sides affliction. Wonder what McDaniels will get paid out, enough she can take a few years off to renovate her reputation?

[calimary]

17. And Kristen Welker hosting "Meet the Press"?

OMG... THAT'S an insult. That's like letting the eighth grade class president run a university.

[Bev54]

20. Yes NBC picked her to take over from Todd. There is something seriously wrong with the executive

at NBC.

[flashman13]

6. I'm waiting to see what Olbermann has to say on the subject. Stay tuned.

[SupportSanity]

19. Yes. I'm guessing that Ronna will make Keith's "Worst Persons in the World".

However, I think that award should go to the people that hired her.

Keith almost always has a different perspective or an unusual/rare tidbit that others will eventually get to later on.

Maybe SNL will have a skit about it.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. Vox, Mother Jones, The Atlantic, and The Guardian are not Nazi Broadcasting Corp.

[malaise]

9. K & R

Important

[TheBlackAdder]

11. Why did I just get a Hogan's Heroes flashback when reading this? 🤣

[Hekate]

12. Read it at the link. I think I need a cigarette after that, & I don't even smoke.

Steve Schmidt is exceptional when he’s on a roll.

[FakeNoose]

14. I wanted to, but I couldn't get past the paywall

[Hekate]

18. How odd. I got through it okay. Maybe if you try again later?

[Aristus]

13. Ronna McDaniel at MSNBC is the Wendy's surge pricing of broadcast media.

[NoRethugFriends]

28. she is not at MSNBC

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

33. I haven't gone there since they raised the price of a Bag to $5 from $4. It sure as Hell wasn't 20% better

It wasn't ANY better, so where did my extra 1$ go? Not into my bag in the form of quality, that's for sure.

Their little release didn't make me have second thoughts about going back, even though they're the closest place for FF. Overpriced because a lot of cars are in line? Then avoid unless no one's there would be my hint to you.

[Tanuki]

15. Steve Martin: It's like hiring John Wilkes Booth as theatre critic

Link to tweet

[calimary]

16. First thing I noticed when I opened the link - the reminder of the "getting myself camera-ready" thing.

Look at those lips! She's definitely had 'em plumped up - but not with any subtlety. You don't look at her face and think "hmmm, she's looking a lot better these days." You look at her face and wonder who installed the hot dogs on her mouth.

I hope whoever made this lame-ass decision to bring her onboard gets his/her head handed to her, and big neon signs helpfully guiding her to the exit door. Eat the money. Too bad, but it's the price of preserving credibility and audience trust (which they evidently don't care about too much).

In the news business, credibility is everything. EVERYTHING. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Viewers and listeners have to believe you when you're on the air. They have to take you seriously and TRUST YOU. NBC evidently doesn't think that trust counts for much anymore. They just wanted a marquee name, and a high-level/high-profile one, also. It just means they've sold their souls for ratings. Somehow, growing up with Huntley-Brinkley and Cronkite on CBS makes this look to me like a genuine affront and careless whoring for a big name, regardless what THAT particular name signifies or the baggage it brings with it. Especially when this baggage happens to be full of shit.

Heads BETTER roll over this one. Including hers.

[ShazzieB]

22. I notied the lips, too.

Especially the lower one, which looked about twice as big as the upper. Very odd effect, lol.

[calimary]

23. And her presence on the network will probably encourage more Republicans to come on

and spew their shit. Door's wide open now, pool's all clean and the water's warm.

Is NBC trying to be the new Pox Noise? Or "Fox Lite"?

[betsuni]

34. First thing I noticed.

Cannot see the name without seeing Ronald McDonald.

[czarjak]

24. You built this Steve.

I remember your lecturing during The W Fiasco. Republican conservatism. If we weren't with you and your ilk at the time, we were scum, right? Now, you know better? Thanks for nothing.

[Farmer-Rick]

27. Wow, the filthy-rich really have

A solid steel bubble that surrounds them.

They are so out of touch with the majority of Americans it's dumbfounding.

And they hire "consultants" when they inevitably make huge mistakes. Most good managers and business leaders don't need anyone to tell them what to do to fix things.

So, why do they pay these CEOs multimillions to make decisions when they are sooooo bad at it?

[dlk]

29. In our world of vulture capitalism, journalistic integrity appears to have fallen by the wayside at NBC

The nicest thing that can be said about McDaniel is that she's a partisan hack, committed to spreading baseless conspiracy theories. There is much worse that can also, truthfully, be said about her.

To survive, our democracy requires a strong fourth estate, grounded in integrity, that reports facts and the truth. In the race for higher profits, NBC has fallen into the infotainment trap and, sadly, there is a high price to be paid by all of us.

[Trust_Reality]

30. Suggestion on where to look for "funny business"

Ronna ROMNEY McDaniel is almost certainly a Mormon based on family.

The Mormon church owns lots of stock in lots of large companies, like Comcast I suspect, parent company of NBC. So was this hiring a corporate board member "request" ?

Haven't I seen evidence that McDaniel was involved in the stop-the-election-certification phase of the coup attempt?

This hiring is really bizarre.

[Ligyron]

31. Don't know much about what's going on but Imma just throw this out there

...or here. whatever.

Bonera Mc Romney finally finds a conscience and does't get fired but QUITS and Trump yells shes FIRED just to look good in his Q believing cult member's eyes.

Then she floats her new found integrity to Masters of the Universe but for reasons yet unknown is quickly snatched up by NBC saying she can dish dirt for months, years maybe ... so they hire her totally forgetting how bad this will look to their viewers?

[Warpy]

32. The bosses want to lurch to the far right, so they can stay bosses

The news people know how dangerous that is, and try to pull back from the brink.

That crisis is happening in all the newsrooms, broadcast and print.

Eventually they'll have to return to the pre Katie Couric CBS model, where the news room was separate from the parent company and as long as they employed rigorous fact checking, it was hands off.

I don't think I'm the only one out there who got disgusted and turned corporatized news off. I have to think it's starting to affect the all important bottom line.

Otherwise, they can all change their names to Pravda.