Meet the Press host Chuck Todd thinks he and his fellow legacy media journalists are not actively in the arena opposing President Donald Trump.
“He keeps trying to draw the media into the arena. We’re there to call balls and strikes, and blow the whistle, to referee,” Todd said of Trump in an interview with Sports Business Journal that was published on Monday. “We have to stick to our guns on that.”
Last year, Todd said it was a struggle for him and his fellow journalists to “dispassionately” cover Trump. And as I noted at the time, legacy media reporters often act like blatantly biased baseball umpires or WWE “referees” when they cover Trump or the economic nationalist agenda that got him elected:
Those in the legacy media can claim they are “umpires” all they want but their strike zones have always been as wide as the late Eric Gregg’s for Democrats and as narrow as Tim Tschida’s for Republicans, especially those who favor nationalist policies. And since new and social media can now expose their biases like K-zone has done in baseball, the media are becoming apoplectic.
Those like Todd have dispassionately chosen for decades which critical pieces of information to ignore to advance their preferred narratives and, like professional wresting commentators, what leading questions to ask their favored candidates on the left. And if legacy media reporters are referees as Todd claims, they are more like rasslin’ referees who, under the guise of neutrality, are critical players in working with the wrestlers to determine how matches and story lines end.
Todd gave the outlet an interview before Trump called him a “sleeping son of a bitch” during a campaign rally earlier this month.
He also seems to understand Trump’s schtick, though, having said that during a group session, “Trump one second called me a monster and the other second [was] going, ‘And I love this guy.’”
Todd also admitted that the media and NFL players overreacted to Trump’s criticisms of NFL players who refused to stand for the national anthem. The Meet the Press host is bullish on the NBA, pointing out that the league has managed to make itself “market-neutral.” Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, who recently purchased the team for a reported $2.2 billion, may have said it best when he exclaimed, “the NBA is where it’s at.”
But Todd failed to mention that even though NBA players have spoken out against Trump and protested police brutality, especially after Eric Garner’s death, the league still remains popular in part because NBA players have stood for the national anthem. In fact, before this season, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told NBA teams and players that he expected players to follow league rules and stand for the national anthem. Silver also suggested there could be fines or penalties if players did not stand for the anthem.
Going back to politics, Todd added that it is not easy when President Donald Trump attacks journalists before adding that “journalists aren’t here to be popular.”
“We’re here to do a job. So what if they attack you? If they’re attacking you, you must be doing something right,” he claimed.