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Dear John,
Last Friday, NBC News announced their disastrous decision to hire disgraced former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid news analyst.
Ronna McDaniel is an election denier. The former Republican National Committee chair has repeatedly promoted the Big Lie of voter fraud in the 2020 election and still, to this day, has continued to insist there were big “problems” with the vote.
As RNC chair, McDaniel was on a phone call to Michigan county officials, pressuring them not to certify the Detroit-area vote, where Biden was way ahead. She told them, “Do not sign it ... We will get you attorneys.”
Now, facing massive public outcry, along with the unified opposition of their top talent, including Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, Joe Scarborough, and others, NBC reversed course and rescinded the contract finally realizing they could not put an election denier involved in the plot to overthrow the 2020 election on a legitimate news network.
McDaniel is out, but how could it have even come to this in the first place?
News networks cannot continue to give precious airtime to those who would mislead and misinform the American public. NBC claimed they were trying to put Trump supporting voices on air under the guise of being “balanced,” but they have abdicated the most basic principle of journalistic ethics: first, tell the truth.
This problem goes well beyond Ronna McDaniel. If you’ve been involved in any part of Trump’s Big Lie, you simply cannot be trusted with real news. Join us in demanding news networks stop giving election deniers a platform for spreading baseless lies that put our democracy at risk.
As Chuck Todd said in the roundtable discussion after Meet the Press host Kristen Welker interviewed McDaniel on Sunday, “I don’t know what to believe.” This is not a good look for a news organization!
When your Chief Political Analyst does not even know what he can believe on his own network, it’s time for a serious rethink!
Refusing to engage with anyone who has willingly promoted the Big Lie sends a message far beyond the Democratic base. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the McDaniel fiasco was a “stark reminder of how election denialism remains a divisive and burdensome topic” for the GOP going into this election year.
For the sake of democracy, it’s crucial that the Big Lie continues to be a “divisive and burdensome topic.”
News organizations should air the views of principled conservatives to provide perspective, but no responsible news program should spotlight as a paid contributor someone who uses their power to gaslight and intentionally confuse the American populace, to soften the ground for demagoguery -- or the wannabe dictator Donald Trump.
In the words of journalistic icon Edward R. Murrow:
To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; credible we must be truthful. - Edward R. Murrow
Without the truth, journalism loses its moral authority. And without the truth, we, the American people, cannot provide our most basic function in a democracy: to be an informed electorate.
Tell the news networks: Stop platforming election deniers! Insist on truth-telling as the basis of journalistic integrity now.
Thank you for helping to right this wrong!
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
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