OPINION:
Courtesy of “Monday Night Football,” we got to enjoy yet another victory by the Kansas City Chiefs last week, and yes, even more shots of Taylor Swift and her entourage trying to pay attention to and understand the game.
I am well beyond the point of annoyance with the cross-marketing genius that is the probably cooked-up romance between Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Ms. Swift. Good for the boys at the National Football League for figuring out a way to make football appealing to women who like celebrating their bad decisions through the majestic medium of song.
The night before, however, was probably more telling. The Oct. 6 game, televised by NBC, featured the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Cowboys won, but the more interesting story was who attended the game and how he was treated.
Elon Musk, President Trump’s newest best friend, was in the stands (well, in one of the suites) in Pittsburgh, decked out in a red MAGA hat. Not surprisingly, NBC did not show Mr. Musk — one of the world’s richest and most famous men — at any point in the game. Mr. Musk tried. He cheered. He waved a Steelers “terrible towel.” He went live on X Spaces while in the suite.
All to no avail. It is not because NBC is shy about featuring famous people. It routinely includes sightings of actors, singers and entrepreneurs throughout its broadcasts of NFL games.
Indeed, that Sunday evening, NBC repeatedly panned to Calvin Broadus Jr., or Snoop Dogg, throughout the game (he’s a judge on NBC’s “The Voice,” which likely explains the interest). At last year’s AFC championship game, NBC panned to Ms. Swift no fewer than seven times. At the Super Bowl, Ms. Swift and her entourage were on camera at least 12 times.
The different treatment was obvious enough that Antonio Brown, former wide receiver for the Steelers, noticed it and posted: “NBC choose not to show @elonmusk at the Cowboys vs Steelers game. Another reason to get out in Vote. Media censoring is real and will only get worse unless change #CTESPN.”
We get it. Mr. Musk is working to get Mr. Trump reelected, including most recently providing a novel incentive ($47) for voters in swing states to sign a petition in favor of the First and Second amendments to the Constutition. Obviously (and cleverly), that is designed to drive voter turnout in the swing states. It has the added consequence of driving the chattering classes — already unhappy with Mr. Musk’s decision to level the electoral playing field a bit — to distraction.
Ms. Swift has been and is a vocal supporter of Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris. That’s all good; everyone has the right to their opinion. But by making it clear that Ms. Swift is to be lionized and Mr. Musk marginalized with respect to television time (the coin of the realm in celebrity America), NBC has made its own electoral biases clear.
The next time someone tells you that the legacy media are unbiased, remind them of Ms. Swift and Mr. Musk and which one of them the media prefer and why.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor to The Washington Times.
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