Media that try to appease bullies will end up being controlled by them
History shows that the road to dictatorship begins with appeasement
Charlie Sykes, the conservative podcaster and contributor to MSNBC, says we should see a history lesson in the NBC News hiring and then firing of former Republican Party chair Ronna McDaniel.
In his view, NBC News executives were afraid of Donald Trump’s threat to take away the broadcasting license of any media outlet that opposed him.
They were already assuming Trump would win in November and were trying to inoculate themselves by hiring someone who supported Trump’s “stolen election” conspiracy theory.
In Sykes’s view, one of the lessons to democratic societies is the risk of appeasement. It aided the rise of totalitarian leaders in the 1930s and around the world today. Trying to appease them doesn’t work. The more power we give them, the more they take until we no longer have a say in how we’re ruled. Witness Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Sykes, who considers himself a moderate conservative, made his comments during a panel discussion Saturday, April 13, at the International Symposium of Online Journalism: “The media and election season: Are we gonna get it right this time?”
Implied in the question is that journalists got it wrong in 2016 when they failed to recognize the appeal of Donald Trump.
Responding to moderator Evan Smith, Sykes said, “Answering your question, ‘Are we gonna get it right this time?’, you’re not going to like this, but the answer is no,” Sykes said. “I think there’s a real possibility that we’ll be even worse this time.”
Sykes said that although there’ll be “some of the best journalism of our lives this year,” the voters that most need that journalism will not see it or will not believe it. He said this mainly comes down to the isolation of journalism and lack of trust in the media.
“The age of mass media is over,” Sykes said. “We’re talking about a completely different media universe and too many journalists continue to act as if it’s still 1976.”
The calculation of NBC News executives
Other media coverage of the Ronna McDaniel hiring and firing indicated that NBC News executives had no idea how strongly their own on-air talent opposed hiring a commentator who promoted the “stolen election” conspiracy of Trump.
In an interview with Scott Simon of NPR, Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the conservative website The Dispatch, said the executives committed “malpractice” by not first consulting their own people about McDaniel.
