NBC News agreed to host a town hall with President Trump, and while many networks would celebrate such a program, this one has created a headache for the outlet.
The network is set to host a town hall with Trump on Thursday night, but it has received backlash, both internally and externally, for agreeing to put on the event at the same time Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is participating in a town hall on a competitor’s network — ABC News.
There was enough consternation behind the decision to make viewers decide which candidate to tune into, instead of being able to see both of them together, which was supposed to happen, that NBCUniversal News Group chairman Cesar Conde acknowledged the controversy in a written statement, according to Politico.
“We share in the frustration that our event will initially air alongside the first half of ABC’s broadcast with Vice President Biden. Our decision is motivated only by fairness, not business considerations. We aired a town hall with Vice President Biden on October 5 at 8pm,” he said.
Conde also said that he hopes viewers will watch both town halls even if it’s at a later time.
“If we were to move our town hall with President Trump to a later time slot we would be violating our commitment to offer both campaigns access to the same audience and the same forum,” he added. “We hope voters will watch both discussions — ours will be available at any time, free and on-demand on YouTube, Peacock and all our digital news platforms.”
The two presidential candidates were supposed to stand on the same debate stage on Thursday before the plans fell apart earlier in October. The Commission on Presidential Debates changed the debate structure to make it a virtual town hall given the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis.
The president and the Trump campaign rebuked the alternative and said he wouldn’t participate, although they did offer to delay the debate a week, which would also result in delaying the third and final debate a week.
The Biden campaign rebuffed those ideas and decided to host a town hall on ABC News. It was announced Oct. 8, the same day the president said he wasn’t interested in participating in a virtual town hall. Conversely, the Trump campaign and NBC did not agree to host the Thursday town hall until a day before it was set to take place.
A number of former NBC employees spoke out on the controversy.
“Having dueling town halls is bad for democracy,” former NBC Today show star Katie Couric tweeted. “Voters should be able to watch both and I don’t think many will. This will be good for Trump because people like to watch his unpredictability. This is a bad decision.”
Aspen Digital executive director Vivian Schiller, who previously spent time as the chief digital officer at NBC News, called the decision “shameful” on Twitter, adding that, “The point of a news organization is to serve the public. This is the opposite. @NBCNews could literally run this any other day, or any other time. Shameful.”
Additionally, more than 100 Hollywood actors, directors, producers, and showrunners sent a petition to NBCUniversal and Comcast executives regarding the event, according to Variety. In the letter, which was signed by household names like Seth Rogen, Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman, and Mandy Moore, they said that they were “devastated” when they learned about the town hall.
The group also said, “This kind of indifference to the norms and rules of our democracy are what have brought our country to this perilous state.”
