Two of the biggest stories in the American media at this moment are about staffing choices: former Republican National Committee chair Ronna Romney McDaniel’s hiring and swift firing from NBC, and popular commentator Candace Owens’s departure from the conservative Daily Wire (best known as the home for Ben Shapiro’s mega-popular podcast).
While different in details, both stories are essentially about the same question: How can media organizations responsibly handle an increasingly radical conservative movement?
In McDaniel’s case, the issue was election denial. After her hiring was announced, NBC staff revolted — noting her vocal defense of Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election while running the RNC. Some top talent, like Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, revolted on air — leading NBC to part ways with McDaniel before she really got started.
At the Daily Wire, mainstreaming election denial is hardly a firing offense. But over the past months, Owens has outed herself as an antisemite — recently liking a social media post claiming that a prominent rabbi was “drunk on Christian blood.” Eventually this became too much for the Shapiro-founded website; last week, CEO Jeremy Boreing announced that Owens and the site have “ended their relationship.”
In both cases, the media organization has received significant blowback. Republican sources are threatening to cut off NBC journalists in retaliation for McDaniel’s defenestration. Right-wing trolls, led by Hitler-admiring self-described incel Nick Fuentes, have led a campaign of antisemitic social media incitement against the Daily Wire in support of Owens.
Objectively, this is all absurd: No news organization should have to face consequences for taking a stand against anti-democratic lies or antisemitic bigotry. But it’s important to understand why it’s happening: The conservative movement, the backbone of one of our two major political parties, is off the rails.
That brute reality has…
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