In an unexpected memo to his colleagues, Chuck Todd said he has been working on some other projects and he was going to pursue those. He had been at NBC News for 18 years.
Tim Graham, of Media Research Center, says things started to go south for Todd in 2023 when he was replaced by Kristen Welker on the network's signature Sunday show, which once featured the late Tim Russert.
“Ever since (Todd) was sort of deposed as the moderator of 'Meet the Press,' I mean, you'd think the writing was sort of on the wall,” Graham says.
Graham recalls the surprise move confused viewers as well who wondered if Todd had done something wrong or if NBC executives wanted a minority and a woman to lead their Sunday show.
In his memo, Todd said that the media has a lot of work to do to win back the trust of viewers. Graham says, on that score, he is right.
“There's an enormous number of Americans who have little or no trust in the so-called mainstream news media,” Graham observes. “So there's obviously a revolution of sorts and a lot of other sources of information.”
Not surprisingly, Todd himself has been a target of Graham and MRC over the years. A Newsbusters story published last week, by Geoffrey Dickens, described "the worst" moments on air for Todd. A year ago he was comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and predicted the Republican Party will become a "kleptocracy" if he was elected.
Todd didn't announce where he is headed but Graham predicts it will likely be Substack or some other online venue. He is also keeping his podcast, which he calls ChuckToddcast.
“To me that says he couldn't find another network gig, so I'm going to have a podcast or I'm going to have a Substack,” Graham says of Todd’s reasoning. “So it’s a way to stay in the game but it is not the same game that they were getting on CNN or NBC.”
