Wallace Keeps it Real. NPR Not So Much. | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace got in a heated spat with former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Tuesday evening after she confronted him on why he ignored Fox News while criticizing the rest of the media in his new book.

It’s unusual for two interviewers on two different networks to have a media win two days in a row for the same interviewee, but Wallace’s interview with Christie arguably was an even bigger hit than Dana Bash‘s.

Wallace grilled Christie, and put him on the spot particularly hard about the media criticisms in his new book out this week.

“The book is called — is about conspiracies and lies and you really don’t take on Fox News,” Wallace said. “Why not?”

As Christie answered, Wallace interjected, “Do you watch Tucker Carlson?”

“No, I don’t watch it, not really,” Christie replied.

“It’s a book with truth-deniers, conspiracy theorists on the cover and you attack CNN, the New York Times, and MSNBC,” Wallace continued.

Christie defended himself saying in the section of the book Wallace is referencing, he was talking about bias. Wallace shot back, “Is bias more dangerous to the country than conspiracy theorists?”

Christie again tried to move the conversation, saying the section covering conspiracy theories is a separate part of the book and that Wallace is “conflating them” – “accidentally I am sure.”

Wallace didn’t buy it and hit Christie again, saying, “I don’t think it’s an intellectually honest case to make about conspiracy theories without taking on Fox News.”

Wallace eventually asked Christie rather bluntly if he avoided them out of fear. ““Are you afraid to question the purveyors of conspiracy theories?” she said, in what was clearly the defining back-and-forth of the interview.

In another clippable moment, Wallace returned from commercial to say of Christie’s book, “We’re going to have to agree to disagree that Republicans are worth rescuing,” to which the former governor simply replied, “Okay.”

It was pretty eye-popping TV, back-to-back Christie interviews or not.

NPR on Tuesday deleted a tweet claiming “disappointment” among voters in Boston after the city elected first Asian American mayor Michelle Wu, saying they don’t “always get things right the first time.”

“Michelle Wu, an Asian American, is the first woman and first person color elected to lead the city,” NPR noted in an initial missive. “While many are hailing it as a turning point, others see it as more of a disappointment that the three Black candidates couldn’t even come close.”

The tweet vanished by the afternoon. “Many were hopeful Boston would finally elect its first Black mayor, as most of the nation’s 30 largest cities have already done,” NPR wrote in a revised version. “Black activists and political strategists reflect on what they can learn from the 2021 campaign season.”

The company added in a follow-up: “We realize we don’t always get things right the first time, and our previous tweet/headline misrepresented the story. We deleted the previous tweet, which was causing harm, and have updated the story.”

Eagle-eyed critics noticed the change and ridiculed NPR for the infelicitous claim.

“NPR had applauded the diversity of the contenders. What changed?” asked one tweet that was fairly representative of the pushback.

Many people who responded, including Pro Publica’s Dan Nguyen, pointed out that despite the reworking of the Twitter representations, the sentiment of the tweet is still central to the story, and remains in the opening paragraph.

“While many are hailing it as a major turning point, others see it as more of a disappointment that the three Black candidates in the race couldn’t even come close,” it still reads.

NPR said the tweet was causing harm and did not represent the story, but that tweet’s claim is the theme of the article and almost a verbatim quote from it. That makes their walkback little more than theater in the face of critics they believe won’t click through. That’s not conscience at work, it’s calculation.