When NBC decided to counterprogram the Trump town hall with Biden’s town hall, the sleepy one himself flew into a rage. He probably went to bed even earlier when he found out about this one. NBC staffers and Biden staffers are both ticked off at the moment. While you may have expected this already, we are here to tell you that the whining is off the charts.
If you have spent any time on social media over the past day or so, you have probably seen a lot of crybaby posting. People seem to think that they are grinding a very important ax here. In reality, no one should care this much about this. Those who like to hate-scroll are in luck because all of the big-name lefties have taken to Twitter to whine.
“Having dueling town halls is bad for democracy-voters should be able to watch both and I don’t think many will. This will be good for Trump because people like to watch his unpredictability. This is a bad decision. #vote,” Katie Couric says. This is where these sorts of celebrities start to lose us. Why does she even think that anyone would care about this?
Having dueling town halls is bad for democracy-voters should be able to watch both and I don’t think many will. This will be good for Trump because people like to watch his unpredictability. This is a bad decision. #vote
— Katie Couric (@katiecouric) October 14, 2020
“The point of a news organization is to serve the public. This is the opposite. @NBCNews could literally run this any other day, or any other time. Shameful. (Disclosure: I am a former NBC News exec),” Vivian Shiller chimed in. The parentheses are the best part of this one. We know, Vivian, we know. That’s why these predictable tweets did not need to be shared with the rest of us.
The point of a news organization is to serve the public. This is the opposite. @NBCNews could literally run this any other day, or any other time. Shameful. (Disclosure: I am a former NBC News exec) https://t.co/I1CrBq3Y3H
— Vivian Schiller (@vivian) October 14, 2020
Just for good measure, we also got to hear the musings of Mark Lukasiewicz, so there’s that.
This is a bad result for American voters, who should not be forced to choose which to watch. So much is still going wrong with how TV journalism copes, or still fails to cope, with @realDonaldTrump. https://t.co/eRylzIuIBO
— Mark Lukasiewicz (@DeanLuk) October 14, 2020
“This is a bad result for American voters, who should not be forced to choose which to watch. So much is still going wrong with how TV journalism copes, or still fails to cope, with @realDonaldTrump,” he blathered. So there you have it! The same responses from the same people you expected.
When it comes to the timing, we suspect that NBC did not exactly have a lot of leverage to work with. The Trump campaign is simply not going to agree to a townhall unless they are getting the chance to stick it to Biden in some way. Guess what happens if NBC says no to the offer? CBS says yes and the situation still unfolds in the same manner that you would have expected.
Trump may have even done a more traditional type of deal with a network like Fox. The election is in three weeks. NBC says no and they become the laughingstock of the world because they turned down an easy rating slam dunk. The media might want to see Biden win but that does not mean that they are going to turn down an easy win themselves.
In the pandemic era, it’s not like networks are flush with awesome programming options. Shows that once ran on bottom feeder streaming services are getting picked up by the Big Four networks. No one is walking away from a surefire ratings bonanza in this climate, let’s be totally clear here.
“Some staffers inside NBC News and MSNBC are also perturbed by the decision, with some likening it to collusion between the Trump campaign and the network,” sources told CNN. The Trump campaign motive is an obvious one here. This is a pure you-know-what measuring contest. This is just how Trump operates and we wouldn’t expect this to be any sort of exception.
At this point, Biden’s fates depend on Trump. If he performs poorly, this does more to help him than his own good performance will. That’s what happens when you hinge your whole campaign on not being the other guy. Your fortunes ebb and flow with his.
“A town hall, in particular, doesn’t offer Trump much upside. He’s not good in those formats, he’s been especially wacky lately, and they generally get pretty mediocre ratings so to the extent people hear from him, it’s probably from some clip of a bad answer that went viral,” said Nate Silver. As usual, he’s right on the mark.
A town hall, in particular, doesn't offer Trump much upside. He's not good in those formats, he's been especially wacky lately, and they generally get pretty mediocre ratings so to the extent people hear from him, it's probably from some clip of a bad answer that went viral.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 14, 2020
