Seemingly out of shame, CNBC has initially downplayed the breaking news that the Republican National Committee is punishing parent company NBC for Wednesday’s biased presidential debate. While MSNBC and CNN offered extensive commentary and analysis, CNBC allowed just a minute and eight seconds since the story broke around noon.
At 1:50pm, news reader Sue Herera broke in with the story: She explained, “The Republican National Committee is, quote, 'suspending,' end quote its partnership with NBC News and Telemundo for a GOP primary debate scheduled in Houston next February.”
The full news report:
1:50
1 minute and 8 secondsSUE HERERA: The Republican National Committee is, quote, “suspending,” end quote its partnership with NBC News and Telemundo for a GOP primary debate scheduled in Houston next February. In a letter to the network, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus says it cannot continue to work with NBC on the debate, quote, “without full consultation with our campaigns,” end quote. Priebus said that he does want, a quote, “a repeat,” of this week’s debate hosted by CNBC, accusing CNBC of acting in, quote, “bad faith” by not following through with promises to focus on economic and financial issues.
The letter says the RNC still plans to hold a debate on the scheduled day with National Review remaining a partner. Now, in a statement, NBC News says, quote, “This is a disappointing development, however along with our debate broadcast partners at Telemundo, we will work in good faith to resolve this matter with the Republican Party,” end quote. This comes after several campaigns set a meeting for Sunday to discuss the format of future debates without inviting the RNC to participate.
On Thursday, John Harwood, one of the debate moderators, briefly discussed the story, sneering, “As I said, he [Rubio] and other candidates, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, they got a lot of mileage with Republican primary voters by going after us.”
On the CNN Money website, Brian Stelter explained the fallout:
There certainly wasn't much introspection on the air Thursday. Quick and co-host Joe Kernen were back in New York for the 6 am start of the network's morning show "Squawk Box," which covered debate highlights but not the media controversy. (Marco Rubio and Chris Christie did share their criticisms during interviews, however.)
As the day went on, there was less and less talk about the debate on CNBC. According to one of the employees, producers were given internal guidance to move on.At CNBC's sister news outlets MSNBC and NBC News, producers were advised not to "pile on" the moderator controversy, according to people there.
On Thursday night, Stelter appeared on CNN and blamed conservatives for “more polarization” by complaining about liberal media bias.
According to a Media Research Center analysis, 65 percent of the debate questions on Wednesday included personal insults or attacks.
