As boneheaded corporate decisions go, the one by NBC News to bring on Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor is right up there.
Whatever twisted purpose hiring the former Republican National Committee (RNC) chairperson was meant to accomplish has been lost. That may have been gaining access to Republican bigwigs, sending a cynical message of ideological diversity or boosting ratings.
Instead, the network has badly damaged its reputation and credibility. The hire makes a statement that, for this major US news organization, there are no consequences – rather, a juicy reward – for public figures who continually lie to the press and citizens. Her contract is reportedly worth $300,000.
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.”
Of course, some commentators defended it, like Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who praised McDaniel’s “insider’s perspective”. He was shot down on Twitter/X by the scholar Norman Ornstein: “This is not about somebody with alternative views. It’s about a serial liar who intimidated election workers, tried to alter the election results in 2020 and has behaved in an utterly despicable fashion.”
Social media memes also rose to the moment: Ronna McDaniel as politics commentator? Why not bring in OJ Simpson to host a show on preventing domestic violence, or hire Vladimir Putin as a Ukraine war commentator? How about a regular show for Ginni Thomas, the insurrection cheerleader married to a corrupt US supreme court justice?
After four days of embarrassing news stories about the hire and its backlash, and some feeble efforts at damage control, it’s clear that the network should reverse course and ditch McDaniel or – depending on the terms of her contract – keep her entirely off the air. And that goes not just for the left-leaning MSNBC cable channel, but for the mainstream NBC News shows as well.
And that’s not enough.
The brass at NBC News needs to take stronger action in a statement – and a brief televised appearance by a top network executive or news leader – that affirms the commitment to covering politics truthfully and rigorously. It could appear once at the top of the nightly news and once on, let’s say, Morning Joe and Meet the Press.
Then, go further. Prove that commitment in the network’s presidential campaign coverage. How? By using extreme care in giving a platform and a megaphone to proven liars, including the former president, and by providing sustained coverage about the stakes of the election, not just the horserace.
Kristen Welker made a good start on Sunday’s Meet the Press, which she hosts. In a news interview recorded weeks before McDaniels’ hire, Welker respectfully but tenaciously grilled the former RNC chair.
Insisting that she hasn’t really changed, McDaniel told Welker that she now acknowledges that Joe Biden won the election fair and square. Welker – perhaps channelling one of her predecessors, Tim Russert – wisely went to the tape, specifically McDaniel’s words to Chris Wallace in 2023: “I don’t think he won it fair.”
McDaniel infamously joined Trump in a phone call pressuring two Michigan canvassers not to certify the election results; and her RNC led the charge to censure Republican members of Congress Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for participating in the House of Representatives January 6 investigation. All while disparaging the media.
As Chuck Todd of NBC put it: “Many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination.”
Todd, on Sunday’s Meet the Press, said he thought NBC owed Welker an apology for putting her in an impossible position. And Mark Jacob, a former Chicago Tribune editor, called in his newsletter, Stop the Presses, for the network to apologize to the public.
These apologies would be welcome, but the main thing is to acknowledge the error in judgment and make sure that no habitual liars or enemies of democracy – whether paid or unpaid – get to blather their way to November’s election.
Truth-telling in the media always matters. It matters intensely right now, as American democracy teeters on the brink.
NBC should affirm that core mission. In so doing, the network could earn itself a lot of goodwill and recover from this blunder. All while doing the right thing.
After all, it’s one thing to screw up. It’s another to dig your heels in.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture