Sources: ratings behind Nightly News absence

While commentators including Greenwald take the view that social media – both Mohyeldin’s usage of it and the response to NBC’s decision to pull him from the assignment – is driving NBC’s decisions, NBC sources offer a more mundane view:

Everyone’s looking for a conspiracy and missing the real story, which is a news division making mistakes through ratings nervousness

The sources say News President Deborah Turness initially considered using Mohyeldin as an eyewitness reporter for the Nightly News segment on the deaths of four boys on a beach in the 2014 Gaza conflict but is disappointed in his ‘tracking,’ or narration of the package, and gave the script to senior foreign correspondent Engels. Nightly News competes with ABC’s World News for the top Nielsen ratings spot. Network source:

The producers are so paranoid about the ratings, they’ll do anything to stick with the faces viewers know and trust — so that would be Richard over Ayman […] Plus, there is no tolerance if a story is fed in and doesn’t live up to expectations