NBC's Chuck Todd doubles down on dismissing critical race theory, says it's 'manufactured' during panel clash

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Media top headlines June 21

Reporters and activists rushing to judge Florida Pride parade crash before investigation, The Washington Post getting knocked for painting Biden as 'deeply Catholic,' and CNN getting shredded for misleading headline on GA voter roll purge round out today's top media headlines

NBC anchor Chuck Todd is standing by his firm dismissal of critical race theory, getting into a combative exchange on Sunday's installment of "Meet the Press."

During a panel discussion, PBS correspondent Amna Nawaz said that the intense education debate is "mobilizing people" and "resonating very deeply," appearing shocked with a particular county in Virginia where several "dozens" of parents attended a single school board meeting "because of this one issue." 

NBC'S CHUCK TODD DISMISSES CRITICAL RACE THEORY AS A ‘FAUX CONTROVERSY’

GOP strategist Brad Todd called the movement against CRT a "parent-led backlash at the grass-roots level," something Todd strongly disagreed with. 

"It's manufactured and then sort of- it seems to have been lit, the fire was lit," the NBC anchor insisted. 

"I disagree," the panelist pushed back. "I think it started because parents have had it with the educational bureaucracy after COVID. They're fed up with it. They tend to trust Democrats when it comes to education funding but they trust Republicans on education accountability. I think that what the backlash you're seeing on critical race theory in schools is another example of parents trying to hold educators accountable." 

Last week, Todd invoked CRT during an interview when he was asked if the shift towards opinion-dominant media is "dangerous." He responded by expressing concern about media outlets "catering" to their audiences in order to drive clicks and viewers.

"So my concern on that is as you do this over time, you continue to pervert the news cycle, right?" Todd said. "Let's take this so-called controversy over critical race theory. And I say ‘so-called controversy’ because it's sort of- it's a creation… It's a faux controversy that's being ginned up. And I guess it just gets attention. It keeps people watching or it keeps people clicking or, you know, all of that. That's the concern."

He continued, "And then suddenly, you create a- there's this perceived- and then suddenly, you know, yadda, yadda, yadda- school board meetings are getting disrupted, right? And then you're just sort of, like, wait a minute. Are you covering the news that people need to know?"

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The liberal MSNBC star insisted that the "basic mission" of news organizations is to inform viewers "what they have to know, what they need to know, not just what they want to know."

"I talk to fellow colleagues about this. And it's sort of like you have this collective agreement- ‘Yeah, this is a problem. But hey, I’ve got to do this for my audience,'" Todd told Mediaite. "We know it's bad collectively but I do think there's too many of us acting individually and I think part of it is because the incentive structure rewards the individual and not the collective in this case."