“There’s never a perfect time to leave a place that’s been a professional home for so long, but I’m pretty excited about a few new projects that are on the cusp of going from ‘pie in the sky’ to ‘near reality.’ So I’m grateful for the chance to get a jump start on my next chapter during this important moment,” Todd said in the memo obtained Friday by USA TODAY.
He continued: “The ‘ChuckToddcast’ is also coming with me (thank you NBC). Stay tuned for an announcement about its new home soon. Needless to say, I do plan to continue to share my reporting and unique perspective of covering politics with data and history as important baselines in understanding where we were, where we are and where we’re going.”
Todd teased a possible newsletter, a popular second act for TV journalists who exit traditional platforms for newsletter structures like independent publishing site Substack.
“The media has a lot of work to do to win back the trust of viewers/listeners/readers and I’m convinced the best place to start is from the bottom up. At my core, I’m an entrepreneur — I spent my first 15 years professionally working for the company that started the political newsletter craze that dominates today. And this is a ripe moment,” Todd said in apparent reference to the country’s divide as Trump takes office once again.
Chuck Todd’s NBC staff memo: ‘We can’t tolerate propogandists’
In his statement, Todd spoke candidly about trust in mainstream media.
“National media can’t win trust back without having a robust partner locally and trying to game algorithms is no way to inform and report,” Todd said. “People are craving community and that’s something national media or the major social media companies can’t do as well as local media.”
He added that “we can’t tolerate propogandists” in his message to colleagues.
“I leave feeling concerned about this moment in history but reassured by the standards I and others at NBC have worked so hard to set.
“We can’t tolerate propagandists. But it doesn’t mean sticking your head in the sand either; if you ignore reality, you’ll miss the biggest story,” Todd said.
“Being a real political journalist isn’t about building a brand, it’s about reporting what’s happening and explaining why it’s happening and letting the public absorb the facts without judging them for coming to a different conclusion. If you do this job seeking popularity, or to simply be an activist, you are doing this job incorrectly,” he added.