Ronna McDaniel OUT at NBC News

[Badger]

I understand where the sentiments are coming from. Still, there is going to be a fundamental incongruence between the concept of a national news network, and an extended effort to cancel 45% of the country.

Sorry but this is a bad faith argument and you know it. There is a vast difference between hiring someone who is simply a Republican and hiring someone who is an election denier and was quite literally a part of the scheme to try and steal the last election. No honest news organization would hire someone with those credentials. This very clearly is not about ideology and again, trying to make it out to be purely that is just disingenuous.

You win some, you lose some. Donald Trump has won the 2024 Republican nomination. Choosing to only represent anti-Trump Republicans is either opting not to represent one side of the political spectrum on your network, or to mislead your audience into believing something else*.

I actually don't have a problem with the former if networks are upfront about it. If NBC wants to be clear they will be a Democratic outlet as long as Donald Trump dominates the Republican party that is fine. What irritates me about MSNBC is the insistence on platforming astroturfed "Republicans" who represent nobody but a grift on resistance wine moms.

NBC is justified in not employing Ronna or anyone else but they should be upfront and acknowledge what that decision means, instead of treating it like a fringe view.

So if a lie becomes popular enough, a news network should report the lie instead of the news?

The best statement of responsible journalism I've ever seen is this: if you (the reporter) are writing a story about the weather, and you interview two people - one who says it's sunny and the other who says it's raining - your job is not to print both statements and give them equal weight.  Your job is to look out the damn window and report which one is right.

. 110% this. Instead of doing so they will merely call the incident a so-called controversy

[Badger]

She's awful but I don't blame her; NBC should've never signed the contract to begin with.

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1772708877470957849

She had every right to pursue legal action.

It may be too late for most people in most states, but let this be a lesson every time a Republican politician says "America is too litigious.'

There is no bigger user of lawyers and lawsuits in the U.S than corporations and nobody should believe Republican lies about the supposed evils of tort law.

If the first thing a Republican does is turn to the law when they've been wronged, nobody should have their right to sue taken away from them and nobody should feel guilty for accessing legal representation.

America IS too litigious.  And, yet, for many, the Courts are the only hope for relief from injustice.  

So, yes, I support Ronna McDaniel's lawsuit.  NBC's behavior is as cowardly as it gets.  

Just imagine if Jackie Robinson were cut from the Dodgers after a week because the Southern Cabals on a number of teams raised a collective stink.  (And, indeed, some of them did; there were some on the Dodgers, and the Cardinals had a cabal of Southerners.)  Players threatened to strike.  NL President Ford Frick told them to, essentially, shove it:

"If you do this (strike), you will be suspended from the league. You will find that the friends you think you have in the press box will not support you, that you will be outcasts. Those who do it will encounter quick retribution. All will be suspended and I don't care if it wrecks the National League for five years. This is the United States of America and one citizen has a much rights to play as another. The National League will go down the line with (Jackie) Robinson, no matter the consequences."

Frick, Ford C. The Pittsburgh Courier: President Frick's Immortal, Uncompromising Statement to Cardinals Who Planned to Strike Against Robinson. 17 May 1947. Page 14.[

Ronna McDaniel isn't Jackie Robinson, but those who ganged up against here didn't have that much more virtue than the NBC staff who were HPs deluded into thinking they were FFs.  If you were fired for your politics, would you just brush it off, or would you fight.  And if you are an employee, would you want them to assert that this is the United States of America and one citizen has as much right to play baseball, be a TV personality, cut hair, manage a business, etc. as any other citizen.  I'm not a big fan of Ronna McDaniel, but NBC knew who she was when she hired here, then caved to the mob they hired.  That's weak and lame.  I will be happy if she sues and wins.  

Comparing firing someone who spouts a tin foil hat level conspiracy theory with theoretically firing Jackie Robinson over his race, just because you share the former's beliefs. Wow. Just....wow.

[Badger]

I have no problem with NBC having to pay off the contract.  They entered it freely and then chose to terminate it -- the correct decision IMO, but that doesn't let them off the hook for it.

[Badger]

Ronna McDaniel isn't Jackie Robinson, but those who ganged up against here didn't have that much more virtue than the NBC staff who were HPs deluded into thinking they were FFs.  If you were fired for your politics, would you just brush it off, or would you fight.  And if you are an employee, would you want them to assert that this is the United States of America and one citizen has as much right to play baseball, be a TV personality, cut hair, manage a business, etc. as any other citizen.  I'm not a big fan of Ronna McDaniel, but NBC knew who she was when she hired here, then caved to the mob they hired.  That's weak and lame.  I will be happy if she sues and wins.  

This is a pretty absurd comparison (even ignoring the false equivalency of race and political beliefs). If she were being hired as an accountant for a steel company, I would probably agree that she shouldn't be fired for her political beliefs. But I don't think it's unreasonable to say that a political or politically-adjacent organization should be allowed to deny employment on the basis of politics, especially when she's going to be literally representing the organization.

If say, Greg Gutfeld, had an overnight ideological conversion, and suddenly became a staunch progressive, would it be wrong for Fox to cancel his show? I think they would be well within their rights to do so.

Plus, let's get down to the fact that she's been hired by a news journalism company, and yet she's loudly pronouncing essentially that the world is flat and 2 + 2 = 5. Any organization that actually cares about objective truths and basic reality shouldn't have her within a million miles of their television studios.

[Badger]

Would MSNBC hire any republican who is NOT a critic of trump even if they weren’t an election denier? Or do you basically need to critizie, callout, and hate trump in order to work there? Say Mike Pence was interested, would they hire him?

I'm pretty sure a basic ability to distinguish between truth and facts versus lies and myth would suffice. Now, where can we find a trump supporter that actually fits that bill?