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Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said his party “won a major victory against the mainstream media” Monday after NBC and CNN canceled plans for programming about Hillary Clinton.
The RNC had threatened to blackball NBC and CNN from participation in Republican primary debates for the next presidential election if they had fulfilled their plans of a miniseries, in the case of NBC, and a documentary, in the case of CNN.
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On Monday, Preibus seemed convinced that it was the RNC’s threat that encouraged the two networks to drop their plans, though neither CNN nor NBC cited the RNC as the reason for abandoning their projects about Clinton, the former first lady, U.S. senator and U.S. secretary of state.
“Conservatives united in calling out their blatant liberal bias and support for Hillary Clinton’s all but announced candidacy (for president),” Priebus wrote at Breitbart.com on Monday. “After all that pressure and bad publicity, both CNN and NBC announced they were canceling their productions today.”
The chairman also called the episode a “first step in the RNC’s efforts to ensure presidential primary debates serve the interests of voters — not the mainstream media.”
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Earlier Monday, NBC said that “after reviewing and prioritizing our slate of movie/miniseries development, we’ve decided that we will no longer continue developing the Hillary Clinton miniseries.”
Prior to that, CNN Films said director Charles Ferguson pulled out of a planned documentary due to his inability to convince friends and associates of Clinton to participate. A CNN spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter that, rather than seek a new director, the project had been scrapped.
Late afternoon Monday, Priebus wrote in his article at Breitbart.com: “This is an important win for conservatives in exposing media bias and holding networks accountable. The top execs who have donated generously to Democratic campaigns are surely heartbroken that the infomercials won’t air.”
Email: Paul.Bond@THR.com
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