Credibility
***** THERE IS AN UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM 3/27/2024 *****
If you are a journalist, at the end of the day, that’s what you have standing behind you. You either have credibility, or you don’t. And in the 21st century, it is often a debatable subject. The debate has turned into an insurrection at NBC, following the announcement that the company has hired Ronna McDaniel, the former chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), as a political news contributor.
NBC News senior vp politics Carrie Budoff Brown wrote her staff, “I’m pleased to announce Ronna McDaniel is joining us as an NBC News political analyst. She will contribute her expert insight and analysis on American politics and the 2024 election across all NBC News platforms.”
Fifty years ago, at the start of my career, communicators fell into two categories, journalists, and public relations professionals, including “spokesmen” (yes, always men). Moving between those two worlds was almost unheard of, and especially the move from pr to the newsroom, viewed with great suspicion. There were some notable exceptions. Diane Sawyer and Ron Nessen come to mind. But they were few and far between. Very few and very far.
Traditionally, no one was paid to be an interview subject or panel guest on a broadcast newscast. That era ended with the arrival of 60 Minutes, the CBS News magazine program. Before 60 Minutes, news divisions lost money and were tolerated by their financial overseers because of government rules requiring broadcast license holders to devote a certain amount of airtime to news and public affairs. 60 Minutes made tons of money and bent the rules to at times “reimburse” in-demand sources for their time and trouble.
Today, with the multiplicity of media platforms, and so much bandwidth to be filled, there is tremendous demand for talking heads. Programmers want to lock in popular guests to be exclusive or at least up-first on their platforms. The result has been the emergence of a third category, the “Paid contributor” or “Paid Analyst.” McDaniel is reportedly being paid $300,000 to fill her role for NBC.
There is plenty of precedent. McDaniel’s predecessor at the RNC, Reince Prebus, was hired as an analyst by CBS after he left the Trump administration. NBC unit MSNBC, a self-styled left wing “anti-Fox,” counts former RNC chair Michael Steele and former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki as journalists with their own programs. ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos worked in the Clinton administration. And right-wing Fox is like the retirement home of former Republican politicians.
The problem here is McDaniel herself. There is certainly a perception, well justified in my opinion, that McDaniel pursued her role with particular relish. She supported the Republican candidate Trump through all his lying, election denying, insurrection and violence encouraging actions and in so doing went beyond the line, blurred though it may be, in the modern media world.
When the news of her hiring broke, McDaniel was already scheduled to be a guest on “Meet the Press.” Moderator Kristen Welker made it clear that the interview was set up before NBC News announced McDaniel had been hired. The interview was not impressive. McDaniel kept avoiding the questions. And Welker proved incapable of pulling much of significance out of her.
What followed was much more interesting. Chuck Todd, the former moderator of the show, blasted NBC News for hiring McDaniel during a panel discussion. He told Welker, “I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation because I don’t know what to believe. She is now a paid contributor by NBC News. I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn’t want to mess up her contract.”
“There’s a reason why there’s a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this,” Todd continued, “because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination. … So, when NBC made the decision to give her NBC News’ credibility you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘What does she bring NBC News?’”
Many more of NBC’s on-air talent have since piled on. Joe Scarborough, himself once a Republican Congressman and co-MSNBC host and wife (how’s that for a title?) Mika Brzezinski opined on “Morning Joe”, “We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring but, if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons,” Scarborough said with Brzezinski adding, “We hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor.” They then played a reel of McDaniel’s various comments questioning the outcome of the 2020 election.
Lawrence O’Donnell added perspective, “There is an easy way to avoid the controversy NBC News has stumbled into. Don’t hire anyone close to the crimes. That’s what happened to the Nixon gang. … None of the people who were involved in hiring Ronna Romney McDaniel were old enough to live through any of that history. Some of them were not born yet.”
MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace said, “What we’ve … said to election deniers is not just that they can do that on our airwaves, but they can do that as one of us, a badge-carrying employee of NBC News, as paid contributors to our sacred airwaves.”
Jen Psaki, “This isn’t about red versus blue. This is about truth versus lies. Service to the country versus service to one man committed to toppling our democratic system. That is the type of experience that Ronna McDaniel brings to the table.”
And in a social media post former Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, tweeted, “Ronna facilitated Trump’s corrupt fake elector plot & his effort to pressure MI officials not to certify the legitimate election outcome. She spread his lies & called 1/6 ‘legitimate political discourse.’ That’s not ‘taking one for the team.’ It’s enabling criminality & depravity.”
The question remains. Is Ronna McDaniel going to be a source of valuable information about politics? That is something she will have to demonstrate over time. If NBC gives her that time.
***** RONNA FIRED ***** UPDATE 3/27/2024 *****
And now we know. NBC will not give her time. None. Zip.
Making for what may be the shortest resume entry of all time, NBC gave up on Ronna McDaniel, reversing her appointment as a political analyst on the company’s various platforms. From Friday to Tuesday makes for a four day career. “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor,” NBCUniversal News Group Chair Cesar Conde wrote in a message to employees.
But while the four day saga may never rate an entry on McDaniel’s Curriculum Vitae, it may well rate a big payday for her bank account.
Various online publications, including Politico, citing unnamed sources, say McDaniel’s contract with NBC carried a two-year term at $300,000 per. The Wall Street Journal says three years at nearly a million. It’s about the same on a yearly basis. I’ll go with the smaller number for this analysis. Creative Artists Agency reportedly negotiated it. CAA is one of the talent industry’s powerhouse firms and certainly knows something about writing an employment agreement.
It seems unlikely CAA agreed to an “out” clause for NBC beyond the usual boilerplate about fraud or “moral turpitude.” That could leave NBC on the hook for the full term of the contract.
Let’s see. $300,000 per year, for two years, that’s $600,000 total. McDaniel made one appearance, rounding up let’s call it a 20-minute interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” That’s about $30,000 per minute. That ought to take a little of the sting out of it for Ms. McDaniel.
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