What Chuck Todd and NBC's "Meet the Press" Left Out is Part of the Problem Democrats Are Facing

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2022/07/what-chuck-todd-and-nbcs-meet-press.html

My television would normally not be tuned in to Meet the Press on a Sunday morning. It was tuned to NBC from something I was watching last night, and I left it there while getting breakfast in the kitchen. The panel discussion caught my attention, because they were putting up polling data and discussing its effects on the mid-term elections. I got teased in to sticking it out because of an appearance by former Vice President Al Gore but the panel discussion, featuring host Chuck Todd, along with Yamiche Alcindor, Maria Teresa Kumar, Stephen Hayes and Jake Sherman, was quite informative.

Informative, that is, in that what appears to be a round-table discussion with media-types that attempts to appear intellectual, authoritative and spontaneous can make some observations while looking at facts, and at the same time, miss some obvious points altogether. I'm sure that these discussions are not anywhere near as spontaneous as they appear, and that the talking points have been outlined before they go on camera. The presence of Kumar and Alcindor lent some credibility to the discussion, and they helped insert some perspective that didn't support what's becoming the tired, old narrative about the party in power losing in the midterms, which was the theme that Todd kept pushing.

Though the whole program was not blatantly one-sided, it was pretty clear, especially in that panel discussion, that Kumar and Alcindor, who try to be objective and unbiased, were put in the awkward position of having to correct and challenge misinformed or irrelevant statements, or redirect the conversation when facts were ignored. Though I don't watch this program very much, that seems to be the pattern of the other panel discussions I've seen there over the past year. Sherman and Hayes just took up time, made their comparisons and analysis of 2022 in comparison to the GOP waves that occurred in Clinton and Obama's first terms, avoiding most of the relevant facts of the discussion.

[Walleye]

1. Chuck Todd is so shallow

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

2. Chuck who?

[LenaBaby61]

4. THIS 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

[MurrayDelph]

8. Chuck Todd?

I wish they would...

[Rebl2]

10. If he's

on, I turn the channel. He even shows up on my local nbc station to talk about what’s coming up on mtp on Sunday and I turn the channel. Get rid of him already nbc.

[LenaBaby61]

11. "Get rid of him already nbc."

[Tetrachloride]

3. The Democrats need to be on the offensive against Chuck

and his acolytes.

If not on the offensive in the first minute, it’s defensive.

[lees1975]

5. Rep. Elaine Luria was a guest on the same program today

and she took him to the woodshed, so to speak. She stood her ground, pointed out his false assumptions and stuck with her point when he tried to redirect.

[Tetrachloride]

6. I am sure there are a great many shows where

Democrats rise to the challenge.

This is slow.

[agingdem]

7. Chuck Todd exists for access

and MTP is a safe harbor for Republicans...they lie with impunity, no follow up questions, no pushback, whereas Democrats are bombarded with GOP talking points and put on the defensive in an attempt to counter Chuck's both sides blather...he needs to be kicked to the curb like yesterday!

[lees1975]

9. I remember nights when Todd was a panelist with some MSNBC and NBC news analysts

and was pretty hard on Trump and the GOP. So this seems like kind of an amateur effort to look unbiased. But surely, even he doesn't want to see another four years of the most corrupt, inept presidency in history.

Fortunately, I don't think the American people want that either, and won't vote for it.