‘Meet the Press’ host Chuck Todd reports from the frontlines of TV news’s shift to streaming

“When Peacock consolidated everything, they don’t have someone separate trying to find TV shows for the broadcast [network] and then TV shows for Peacock, right? It’s the same. We’ve got all these platforms, but it’s one entity. The news division is now moving in that direction,” Todd said.

Here are a few highlights from the conversation, which have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

On the role of ‘Meet the Press Reports’

I would call it a hybrid between a short doc and a magazine. What I think in my head is “Real Sports,” the Bryant Gumbel show: There’s a reported piece, but what “Real Sports” does after their reported piece is they unpack it. We’re trying to do that. You lay it out and then unpack it a little bit.

On producing streaming episodes with longer shelf lives

That’s been our hardest challenge. I constantly am saying, “Hey guys, is this show interesting six months from now?” That’s something we’re trying to figure out. I want the shelf life to be at least a year.

On the post-Trump news cycle

I was discussing this this morning with my writing partner on our “First Read” newsletter. We’d come up with our lead [idea] yesterday to [write] today, and we’ve had some luck in the last few months where we’ll pre-plan a lead and we don’t have to change it. Donald Trump at midnight wasn’t saying some crazy stuff about NATO making us think, “Gee, should we take this seriously or not?”

On journalistic objectivity

There’s no doubt there’s a generational split in newsrooms. There is, 100%. I do think what it really comes down to is as long as the journalist is honest with their readers-slash-viewers, is upfront with where they’re coming from, their perspective — There are some that are like, “Look, I’m an advocate. I’m fighting for X. This is what I do.” I don’t think that should mean the facts they’re surfacing are somehow in dispute.