The Media’s Country Club Gatekeeping

In 2017, NBC fired host Matt Lauer following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

What came next was a Matryoshka doll of hokey gimmicks by the network, including its decision a few years later to appoint an all-female panel to moderate a Democratic presidential primary. In praising the network’s supposedly progressive choice, then-anchor Brian Williams, himself once the subject of a journalism scandal, marveled at the announced moderators’ elite credentials, noting that three-quarters of them had been educated on the East Coast.

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Becket Adams

Becket Adams is a columnist for National Review, the Washington Examiner, and The Hill.

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In 2017, NBC fired host Matt Lauer following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

What came next was a Matryoshka doll of hokey gimmicks by the network, including its decision a few years later to appoint an all-female panel to moderate a Democratic presidential primary. In praising the network’s supposedly progressive choice, then-anchor Brian Williams, himself once the subject of a journalism scandal, marveled at the announced moderators’ elite credentials, noting that three-quarters of them had been educated on the East Coast.