‘Occupy MSM’: The True Definition of ‘Diverse Viewpoints’ at NBC, NYT, Atlantic, Et Al

Say, does anyone remember Occupy Wall Street? The hippy-dippy progressive protest movement camping out in urban areas, protesting The Corporations, and attempting to become an early version of the “autonomous zone” insurrections that erupted during the George Floyd riots nine years later. 

Occupy mostly died out after a few months, but they did leave behind one legacy: up twinkles. Their debate process relied on hand-signal reactions from within the group rather than natural argumentation, and their decision-making process eschewed any meaningful debate or dissent and instead required “consensus” rather than votes. As a result, very few assumptions ever got challenged — and very little ever got done, except for camping and reports of assaults and thefts.

Well, “Occupy” is back in spirit — at NBC News, at The New York Times, The Atlantic, and every other media outlet that suddenly requires workforce consensus to make a hiring decision — when it comes to anyone outside the progressive bubble.

How else to explain this entirely ludicrous retreat by NBC News chair Cesar Conde from his own decision to hire Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst? Conde apparently suffered from the delusion that he made the decisions at NBC News; yesterday, he admitted that newsroom “cohesion” trumped his own authority. The down-twinkles got their veto, not just over Conde but also senior VP Carrie Budoff Brown and editorial president Rebecca Blumenstein, as Politico reports this morning:

 Playbook reviewed text messages showing that Welker and CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN, NBC’s SVP of politics, met with McDaniel in mid-February — a few days after Budoff Brown initially reached out to McDaniel’s team to gauge her interest in joining as a paid contributor. …

Even after the backlash went public Sunday, when NBC’s CHUCK TODD publicly teed off on network execs for the arrangement, McDaniel heard directly from Budoff Brown and REBECCA BLUMENSTEIN, NBC News’ president of editorial, that they’d have her back and the controversy would pass, according to the McDaniel ally. The NBC insider familiar with the situation said their comments were more along the lines of “stand firm.”

But yesterday, as the fallout mounted, McDaniel heard nothing further from top NBC brass about getting the boot, we’re told — even as Conde announced her firing in a note to employees that included a personal apology to employees and a mention of “our deep commitment to presenting our audiences with a widely diverse set of viewpoints and experiences.”

Profiles in Courage, this ain’t. 

That lack of intestinal fortitude by NBC execs is ludicrous enough. But their preening hypocrisy is what makes this part of Conde’s announcement so very, very risible:

Our initial decision was made because of our deep commitment to presenting our audiences with a widely diverse set of viewpoints and experiences, particularly during these consequential times.

We continue to be committed to the principle that we must have diverse viewpoints on our programs, and to that end, we will redouble our efforts to seek voices that represent different parts of the political spectrum.

They’re “committed to the principle,” Conde claims — right up to the point where executives have to stand up to the down-twinkles of their own employees. That’s where their “commitment” ends. And that means, of course, that they’re not committed to it at all.

So Courage! Much Conviction! 

This isn’t just about Ronna McDaniel or J6 either. Kevin Williamson got the exact same treatment at The Atlantic over abortion. Ben Shapiro got iced out of Politico Playbook over ambiguous charges of “bigotry” (likely referring to his opposition to gender ideology). An op-ed on using federal troops to break up urban riots by Senator Tom Cotton made New York Times staffers feel so “unsafe,” in fact, that they forced the paper to withdraw the column and fire the editor who approved it. And just a few months later, the same staffers would demand to know why Cotton’s strategy didn’t get deployed on January 6.

Jack Shafer deduced what actually happened to Williamson at the time, and it applies in all other cases as well, including McDaniel:

Without relitigating Williamson’s abortion views—which I don’t share—let’s agree that if he hadn’t been sent packing for his less–than-modern views on abortion, his critics would have griped about something else in his archives to engineer his removal. Let’s be real here: Kevin Williamson wasn’t sent packing for expressing strong language on abortion but for being Kevin Williamson. 

Precisely. It’s not McDaniel, or J6, or even Trump. The Occupy MSM newsrooms hate any form of dissent to their orthodoxy and will stamp out any attempt to allow its expression. The Protection Racket Media’s idea of diversity — especially at NBC — is solely to allow Republicans on the air to cheer on progressives and criticize conservatives. 

Apostasy of that sort is big business, as Andrew Malcolm and I discuss in our weekly podcast:

[The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!]

In truth, conservative writers and officials have no real career path in the Occupy MSM media, except via the apostate career track. Any conservative or conservo-populist with a solid job in either field would be out of their mind to trust establishment media outlets to keep them on staff or under contract in this environment. Media executives are entirely cowed by their employees, and newsrooms are nothing more than progressive activist centers imposing ideological purity in their workplaces. I may be one of the luckiest sons of bitches I know in this business, but even I know better now than to attempt to market myself for independent column work (I used to have two weekly columns for a few years) in the Occupy MSM reality of today. The extra money was nice, but I’m happier here anyway.

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