NBC News President: Advocacy Journalism is ‘Not What We Do’

Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Advocacy journalism isn’t part of the NBC News brand, the outlet’s president claimed in an interview published on Wednesday.

In a discussion with the Poynter Institute’s Tom Jones, NBC News President Noah Oppenheim said that advocacy journalism “certainly has a place in the menu of available offerings in the world for people who are looking for it.”

“It has a really worthwhile place,” he continued. “It’s not what we do, though. It’s not what NBC News does.”

Oppenheim remarked that NBC News “can have a great impact on” topics including “democracy, voting rights, [and] civil rights,” though do so “not through advocacy, but through illumination.” As an example, he cited NBC News’ “vote watch unit,” which is “a team of journalists, reporters, producers focused singularly on voting rights, voting access, misinformation, disinformation.” He said, “We continue to build that and invest in that.”

Oppenheim continued:

There’s no question the institutions that our democracy depends on are under threat. I don’t think it’s advocacy to say we’re going to cover that story. We’re going to cover the story of state legislatures that are changing their voting laws and procedures. We’re going to cover it when the secretary of state’s race starts talking about these issues.

I think we can cover it without taking a side per se in an overt way. I think the audience and the readers are sophisticated enough when they read what’s going on to draw their own conclusions about whether it’s good or bad for our democracy.