What’s Behind Former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel’s Interest in Joining Corporate Media?

The recent announcement that former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel will join NBC News as a contributor has brought much controversy, much of it misplaced. Rather than asking why NBC News decided to hire McDaniel — the question the corporate media hyperventilated about over the weekend and into Monday — people should instead ask why McDaniel wanted to join such an obviously corrupted institution.

The media outrage demonstrates that Romney will get no respect or plaudits from the mainstream elite. So why do she and others sign contracts at places like NBC, and allow themselves to get played by a media that just wants a few “token” conservatives on the air to disguise their cultural Marxism?

Racist Quotas and Woke Bias

Just over a year ago, I wrote that the RNC should decline to have the major networks participate in the party’s debates for presidential candidates, because of their woke, and likely unconstitutional, “diversity” metrics that categorize employees by gender and skin color. Among that group, NBC News seems particularly objectionable, given that Chairman Cesar Conde publicly called for a quota of making half of the division’s employees nonwhite and half female.

Of course, these same media executives looking to check every racial, ethnic, and gender box care little about their employees’ political bias, which NBC and other media institutions somehow “forgot” to include in their diversity reports. Instead of making an effort to hire conservatives, or at minimum ideological centrists, at every level of the organization — reporters, editors, producers, directors, and the like — the networks just pick off a few prominent conservative personalities to put on camera, and trot them out to make their overwhelmingly leftist organizations appear more “balanced.”

It’s a trick that raises echoes of half a century ago, when some corporate boards made mere token attempts to hire women or African Americans. The question is why the commentators in question seem so desperate for cash, attention, or “mainstream” credibility that they continue to engage in this charade.

Selective Outrage

The level of amnesia on display by NBC anchor Chuck Todd in criticizing the hiring of McDaniel amazes and astounds. Todd, who himself started out interning for a Democrat, then-Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, somehow “forgot” all the former politcos who moved into broadcast media. (Politico’s media columnist helpfully compiled a list.) Several of them, including his late NBC colleague Tim Russert and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, migrated to the news side of television after having served for Democrats, as opposed to McDaniel, who will appear as a political commentator rather than in a journalism role.

Did Todd express outrage at any of these moves? For that matter, did he say a word when NBC News hired the sitting White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, to her current post as an MSNBC anchor?

Speaking of Psaki and her former gig, Todd on Sunday accused McDaniel of “gaslighting” the public during her tenure as RNC Chair. But as I noted two years ago, Psaki waved around a binder supposedly of Covid spending requests, claimed to the press that “we’ll make copies for you,” and then refused to make copies for the one reporter who asked for the information, instead giving the reporter a single hour to review nearly 400 pages of documents in a conference room.

Did Todd call out this gaslighting by Psaki — either then, or now? For that matter, has he criticized his colleague Kristen Welker, Todd’s successor as host of “Meet the Press,” and a White House correspondent at the time of Psaki’s remarks, for Welker’s own incompetence, as she failed to follow up and call out Psaki’s false claims?

And when it comes to “gaslighting,” has NBC News ever provided a public explanation as to why it retracted elements of a story about the attack on Paul Pelosi, other than the generic statement that “the piece should not have aired because it did not meet NBC News reporting standards?” If Todd wants to attack “gaslighting,” shouldn’t he demand that his own employer provide more accountability to their audience about what exactly caused the errors in this story?

Corrupt Corporate Press

I also don’t recall hearing Welker, Todd, or any of the other well-compensated NBC News hosts complaining about how the network recently terminated several journalists, or offering to give up some of their salaries so that NBC could hire and/or retain more reporters. Isn’t it funny how all these anchors’ supposed principles about “saving democracy” and the vital work of the press run hollow when it could jeopardize their own beaucoup bucks?

In that sense, perhaps Romney, who will reportedly make nearly $300,000 a year on her new contract, is made for an institution like NBC. She apparently is willing to play the media game to “make coin” and stay relevant, just like the self-righteousness of Todd and Welker dare not extend to criticizing anything that could jeopardize their cushy jobs. If not exactly a match made in heaven, these characters seem made for each other in a corrupt and craven town like Washington, D.C.