Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director and moderator of Meet the Press, sat down with Marc Lamont Hill of HuffPost Live to promote his book “The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House” and made some strange remarks about cable news.
Speaking on Tuesday, November 18, Todd argued that “Roger Ailes’ political past… sort of makes it, because he actually worked as an operative, it [Fox News] always feels a little more campaign-y than, but I think certainly you know, than what gets accused on the MSNBC side of things.” [Relevant portion 29:30 into video.]
The Meet the Press moderator insisted that “at night there’s certainly a liberal perspective [and] a conservative perspective. I think in the daytime both channels would argue that there’s a lot more straight forward reporting I think during the dayside and I think there’s a lot of evidence to support that.”
It seems odd that Chuck Todd would argue that MSNBC’s primetime lineup is less “campaign-y” than Fox News given that there are several former Democratic operatives who host nightly shows on the “Lean Forward” network. For example, Al Sharpton sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2004 and frequently uses his daily program to go beyond simply promoting a “liberal perspective.”
Then there’s Hardball host Chris Matthews, who got his start working on the staffs of four Democratic members of Congress, including working as a presidential speechwriter during the Carter administration. Matthews also served as Chief of Staff for Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.).
Then there's Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell, who was a key legislative aide to former Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. And let’s not forget, Chuck Todd himself worked for the 1992 presidential campaign of Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).
One shouldn’t be surprised that Todd was unwilling to completely criticize his own network’s overt liberal bias, but for him to argue that a network with 3 of its 5 primetime hosts having direct ties to the Democratic Party is less “campaign-y” than Fox News doesn’t even pass the smell test.
See relevant transcript below.
HuffPost Live
November 18, 2014
MARC LAMONT HILL: Would you consider Fox and MSNBC to be opposite sides of the same coin?
CHUCK TODD: I think it’s a little bit different because, I think, you know, look, I’ve always thought that Roger Ailes’ political past… sort of makes it, because he actually worked as an operative, it always feels a little more campaign-y than, but I think certainly you know, than what gets accused on the MSNBC side of things. I certainly think at night there’s certainly a liberal perspective [and] a conservative perspective. I think in the daytime both channels would argue that there’s a lot more straight forward reporting I think during the dayside and I think there’s a lot of evidence to support that.
