Top MSNBC hosts are using an LED screen to cover the Republican National Convention giving the false appearance that they are reporting on-site from the venue in Milwaukee.
According to the New York Times the screen behind Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Jen Psaki, Joy Reid, and other MSNBC anchors makes it seem like they are reporting live from the RNC, but they have not been inside the convention hall.
They are not even in the same city.
The Times report reads, “Instead, they were broadcasting from a studio in Midtown Manhattan, as a live feed of the convention floor was projected onto an LED screen behind them.”
“The arrangement — which several veteran television news producers described as unorthodox — has created something of a trompe l’oeil effect. A casual glance at the screen would suggest that MSNBC’s top anchors were covering the convention in person.”
MSNBC did previously announce last week that Maddow and other top political anchors would not travel to Milwaukee for the convention. Instead, the network sent Stephanie Ruhle, who hosts “The 11th Hour,” and daytime host Katy Tur, per the Times.
A number of reporters and correspondents from NBC News were sent to Milwaukee for live reporting, including “Today” host Savannah Guthrie, “Nightly News” host Lester Holtand correspondent Jacob Soboroff, who clashed with Donald Trump Jr. during an interview on the convention floor in an exchange that went viral. MSNBC is NBC’s left-leaning cable arm.
While the New York City-based MSNBC anchors did not tell viewers that they were in Milwaukee during live broadcasting, “they have mentioned their location sparingly throughout many hours of evening coverage,” according to the Times report.
Will MSNBC report live from the DNC in Chicago in August? Doing so would certainly signal an editorial bias.
