NBC hiring Ronna Romney McDaniel, a paid liar for Donald Trump is clear proof that integrity has disappeared from American business. The media industry suffers from diminishing public confidence and this doesn’t help.
Given her family's role in US politics and the Mormon Church, McDaniel should have known better than to fawn over Trump. She even stopped using her maiden name because Donald hates her uncle, Mitt Romney. I don't know her personally, but her behavior suggests she is more dangerous than a wooden puppet. Given her devotion to defending Trump's pre- and post-election behavior, how can we not think of her becoming an embedded enemy agent or a spy?
What was NBC thinking? What did parent Comcast think? Most of us who have worked for these sorts of companies were shocked but not surprised. I worked as a journalist and manager for NBC News. I always refer to the news management of that era as the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, in homage to Jimmy Breslin, a great New York columnist who wrote a book about a functionally incompetent Mafia gang.
MSNBC staff were vociferous in their opposition. Rachel Maddow spent nearly 13 minutes on her program explaining how committed Rona McDaniel was to everything Trump said he wanted to do. The Republican Party wants to destroy democracy in America, said Maddow, and McDaniel, as head of the Party, was leading this.
I also worked for ABC News in the Roone Arledge era, for CNN in the years, led by people like Burt Reinhardt and Tom Johnson. Leadership with vision and integrity.
Working at a media company where you are almost universally despised is unpleasant. NBC will pay her even if she resigns; I expect that will happen.
Today's NBC competes in a business sphere that is under attack by new media, especially on the revenue side. We've watched the demise of integrity in many American companies for several decades. Several of us aging journalists were advised by a much younger colleague recently:
"I'm at Wharton for a week, doing some entrepreneur exec education. All these things that you are calling ill-timed or mistakes- are by design. The b-schools are teaching these principals. Look at the growing markets, dump as much money as quickly as possible into it, cut money in dying markets. As an exec, don't worry too much about the industry specifics, just make money fast. Long-term investment = bad. Does it make money long-term doesn't matter, can we show a paper profit short-term. All about creating company "paper value", profit doesn't matter. Obviously oversimplification, but all these "issues" are absolutely considered good business practices."
Business practices are at the heart of events at Boeing.
When McDonnell Douglas merged with its rival Boeing in 1997 it was a merger of behavioral opposites even though both made airplanes. The sales team dominated McDonnell Douglas, focused on making money. Boeing, in contrast was run by engineering people who worried about product reliability and figured they'd sell plenty of planes as air travel expanded. In 2003, Harry Stonecipher, from the McDonnell Douglas side became CEO, and financial folks took over key management from more engineering-focused staffers. As an example, the company built new factories where there would be no unions and no necessity for the mostveteran leadership in assembly issues.
Profits rose and the share price doubled in 20 years. Great for shareholders, but not so good for more than 350 people killed when faulty software caused crashes of the 737 Max 8. Pilots were untrained regarding what to do because Boeing escaped requirements by designating the plane as a continuation design. With no awareness of rhe issue and solution, the planes crashed.
Investigations into those accidents revealed that Boeing's safety and testing requirements were lax. This year after a door panel blew off in flight on another 737 MAX, trust in Boeing's products dropped again from airline companies and travelers. No one died in this latest incident, but many careers at Boeing are changing, including the two top bosses.