NBC News faces a '5-alarm fire' from its own staff over the hiring of former RNC chair Ronna McDanie

Publish date: 2024-06-19
2024-03-25T16:53:39Z

After NBC News announced that it had hired former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor late last week, the pushback from media critics was immediate.

McDaniel, who chaired the RNC from January 2017 until early this month, backed former President Donald Trump as he sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results — which has rankled observers who believe she lacks the credibility needed to be a voice on the network.

In a highly-unusual move, NBC News journalists including former "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd and "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski openly criticized the hiring of McDaniel.

It's a development that CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy on Sunday called a "five-alarm fire" for NBC News.

"This is a complete disaster," Darcy said during an on-air interview on CNN. "I don't think they anticipated this much blowback where on Sunday they'd be dealing with this."

"When they hired her, they said basically that they wanted to represent the other side as she was an important voice and that, you know, Trump Republicans should be represented on the network," he continued. "Now, of course, there's a lot of holes in that argument, and it really rubbed people the wrong way inside NBC News as well and inside MSNBC."

Darcy went on to note that McDaniel had previously thrown out "really ugly, vile attacks on MSNBC hosts and the network and organizations as a whole" during her tenure as RNC chair.

Todd, now the chief political analyst for NBC News, criticized the McDaniel hire after her Sunday interview with current "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker — an interview that had already been scheduled before the former RNC chair was hired by the news organization.

"I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation," Todd told Welker on Sunday in a set of extraordinary remarks where he called out his employer.

“NBC News should seek out conservative, Republican voices to provide balance ... but ... not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier. And we hope NBC will reconsider its decision.”

— “Morning Joe” hosts criticize NBC hiring Ronna McDaniel pic.twitter.com/7PGz1X4B06

— The Recount (@therecount) March 25, 2024

"There's a reason why there's a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination," he added.

Politico reported that McDaniel's salary is set to approach $300,000, a sum that's being criticized by some at NBC, especially after the network underwent a series of layoffs in its news division in January.

"Across MSNBC they have been cutting contributors," one of the network's hosts told Politico. "So everyone's like … You found 300 for her?"

On Monday, Scarborough and Brzezinski said they were "inundated with calls" this past weekend over McDaniel's hiring.

"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 on-air, pointing to McDaniel's role in the 2020 election.

"To be clear, we believe that NBC News should seek out conservative, Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage," Brzezinski said. "But it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier, and we hope NBC will reconsider its decision."

Brzezinski then stated that McDaniel wouldn't appear on "Morning Joe" as a guest.

Business Insider has reached out to NBC News for comment.

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