The planned NBC Hillary Clinton miniseries is a bad idea, says NBC News chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd .
Apparently not towing the company line on the planned four-hour movie, Todd’s reasoning is that the average person can distinguish no difference between NBC Entertainment (which is producing the television movie) and NBC News.
On Monday, the Republican National Committee through its Chairman Reince Priebus accused NBC and CNN of promoting a potential Hillary Clinton presidential run in 2016 with the planned miniseries and documentary (respectively) on the former Secretary of State. He also threatened to pull the GOP’s own primary debates for the next presidential election from NBC and/or CNN if the networks continue with such programming, which critics claim amounts to a free infomercial promoting the presumed Clinton presidential candidacy.
Todd expressed his opinion about the miniseries on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program earlier today: “This miniseries is a total nightmare for NBC News. We know there’s this giant firewall, we have nothing to do with it, we know that we’d love probably to be as critical, or whatever it is going to be, if it comes out. But there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Continued Todd: “We’re going to only own the negatives. Whether it’s negative because it’s the Clinton people are upset that it’s too tough on them, or negative because the Republicans think it’s this glorification of her — no matter what, only we are going to own it, because people are going to see the peacock and see NBC and see NBC News and think: ‘Well, they can’t be that separate.’ ”
Separately, MSNBC anchor Adrea Mitchell and former Obama aide Robert Gibbs both agreed that the Clinton miniseries is a really bad idea given the timing.
Do you think NBC will or will not go forward with the Hillary Clinton movie? Do you believe that NBC Entertainment would ever consider making a movie about Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State under George W. Bush?