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Former Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel was invited to the cafeteria, where she was promptly told by the cool kids that she can’t sit with them.
The news cycle sits on day five of what has been a week- and weekend-long struggle session over NBC’s hiring of McDaniel to provide election-year analysis. Which leads us to wonder: are there any adults still working at NBC and MSNBC?
McDaniel’s hiring simply could not stand with the elite of MSNBC like Chuck Todd, Joe Scarborough and Nicolle Wallace (all former political operatives) as they issued on-air apologies over NBC management to hire someone so closely attuned to a political party they don’t belong to.
Jen Psaki would like a word. While she was sitting White House press secretary, she signed a lucrative on-air contributor deal with MSNBC, NBC News and NBC’s Peacock streaming service. It was unprecedented — a sitting White House press secretary taking questions from her contractual colleagues was a clear violation of ethical conduct between a supposedly independent press and the White House they are meant to be covering.
There was no hand-wringing. There was no public uproar. There were no on-air apologies or brow beatings. Jen Psaki was welcomed at NBC with open arms — and zero hint of hypocrisy.
Likewise, MSNBC played a major part in rehabbing the reputation of controversial race-baiter Al Sharpton, even rewarding him with own show to host. Once again, not a peep.
By Monday, the zone had been flooded with commentary from others at the cool kids’ media table. Self-appointed media finger-wagger Margaret Sullivan caterwauled over at the Guardian, writing, “Can NBC News recover from its damaging decision to hire Ronna McDaniel?” She went on to say that. “Hiring McDaniel — a powerful election denialist who joined then president Donald Trump in pressuring voting officials not to certify the 2020 election — was like putting a standing chyron on the NBC Nightly News: ‘Lying is rewarded here.’”
If election denial is the new on-air standard at NBC, then a lot of people should be fearing for their jobs, including Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Joy Reid and others. And if hiring political operatives is now beyond the pale for networks, then I have a long list of those who should be immediately dismissed, including Chuck Todd himself (as a campaign aide to Democratic senator Tom Harkin), Nicolle Wallace (former Bush administration communications director), Jake Tapper (campaign press secretary for Democratic congressional candidate Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky), ABC News chief political director George Stephanopoulos (President Bill Clinton) and obviously Jen Psaki.
No one’s hands are clean in any of this — and they all know it. These mainstream media morale-boosting performances are simply meant to obfuscate that fact. This is simply about who is allowed to sit at the table, and who is not. Remember the blow-up over Republican senator Tom Cotton being allowed to publish an op-ed in the New York Times?
None of this makes Ronna McDaniel the victim, though; she has bankrupted the RNC and oversaw massive election losses during her tenure. Then, during a consequential election year, she resigned from the RNC for a cushy media job, just like former RNC chair Michael Steele. And until establishment members of the Republican Party care more about their own voters than they do about allying with a media that has sunk their own fangs into her, the party will deserve the sellout label it has rightfully earned.
