Chuck Todd achieved his low bar for success. I wish he would have reached higher. While saying goodbye to Meet the Press after 9 years of Sundays this week, the moderator reveled in the fact that he had not killed the longest-running television program in history. Saying that was his goal: lasting long enough to pass the baton. He has presided over the slow decline of MTP’s ratings, it’s now third in the Sunday morning race, averaging a mere 2.5 million viewers. And perhaps most importantly Todd presided over the broadcasts quicker, more thorough decline in viewer respect.
Todd became a punchline among political and media critics, even comedians. It was Trevor Noah who mocked him to his face at the recent White House Correspondents Dinner, otherwise known as the “nerd prom”. Rhetorically asking Todd, who was in the audience, “How is it going Chuck?” And then joked, “I’d ask a follow-up, but Chuck doesn’t know what that is.”
Todd’s tenure at the helm symbolized what is wrong with today’s journalism from The New York Times to CNN and NBC. As the Columbia Journalism Review summed up in marking the passing of Chuck Todd, he represents “both sidesism, false equivalence” and I would add a compulsion not to offend, even when the audience is being offended by a guest who refuses to answer the question.
Todd’s chief competitors — George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week and CBS Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan — are much more willing to keep asking an important question until it is actually answered.
And perhaps, the best lesson in what not to do, versus what to do was displayed on his own sister network MSNBC. The interview subject was the “shiny object” of the political world Vivek Ramaswamy. While Chuck Todd did his usual poor job of challenging the Republican primary candidate, his colleague on MSNBC, Mehdi Hasan, came prepared with a list of questions and previous quotes by Ramaswamy which served to impale the tech-bro with his own tweets and sentences.
When the anti-affirmative action candidate excused his acceptance of a $50,000 scholarship intended to educate poverty-level immigrants with an “I didn’t have the money then” lie, Hasan waved his tax returns from that year showing the candidate made more than $600,000. It was a beautiful moment, not to be duplicated on MSNBC’s parent network.
And just to remind us what we will be missing on Sundays without Chuck, he gave us one to remember on his final program. U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) was the final guest interview.
While Todd asked him questions about Mitch McConnel’s frozen stare at two recent press appearances, Cassidy, an MD vouched for his ability to continue as Senate Minority Leader, while managing to equate President Joe Biden’s age issues in as a false equivalency.
If Biden had gone into a daze in front of cameras for minutes at a time, Fox and the GOP would be a non-stop “resign” chorus. Biden tripping over a sandbag or an Air Force One step is not nearly equivalent, but Chuck Todd did not point that out in any form.
I worked with and competed against Todd during my time first at NBC and then at the White House as an ABC News correspondent. He was pleasant enough, but not feared by his competitors. In fact, he came off the same way he does on television. Arrogant and pretending to know something his colleagues did not.
I can’t remember any story Chuck Todd broke, he was never awarded any recognition by the White House Correspondent’s Association. He prided himself on being a Washington insider, and that is his legacy at MTP. An insider who cared more about not offending those in politics, rather than holding them accountable.
There are others whom NBC should have chosen to replace him. Nicolle Wallace and Rachel Maddow come to mind immediately. They are practiced at holding political talking points and those who refuse to stray from them to account. Jake Tapper has his moments as well. I don’t think they were asked.
NBC is likely afraid of the GOP pushback their elevations to what used to be the premiere network public affairs program would have caused. Plus Maddow routinely has a bigger audience for her once-a-week performance art of a show on Mondays.
Todd’s replacement, Kristen Welker has a clean slate as she starts her turn “in the chair”. Unfortunately, she did not start well, appearing across from Todd Sunday to praise his work and promise to carry on in his spirit.
One can only hope she was merely being polite, otherwise, the venerable Sunday morning program will not outlast her.
