Ex-'Apprentice' marketing exec apologizes for promoting Trump: 'I helped create a monster'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Hill

10/17/24 10:44 AM ET


A former NBC marketing executive who promoted “The Apprentice” is issuing an apology to America, saying he “helped create a monster” by casting former President Trump, at the time a New York real estate developer, as a “super-successful businessman.” “For nearly 25 years, I led marketing at NBC and NBCUniversal. I led the team that marketed ‘The Apprentice,’ the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name outside of New York City,” John D. Miller wrote in a U.S. News & World Report opinion piece, published Wednesday.

Trump hosted the NBC reality competition series, as well as its spinoff, “The Celebrity Apprentice,” from 2004-15. “To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty. That was the conceit of the show,” Miller wrote. “At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.”

The eventual commander in chief, Miller said, might have been the “perfect choice” to star in the show, because “more successful CEOs were too busy to get involved in reality TV and didn’t want to hire random game show winners onto their executive teams. Trump had no such concerns.” “He had plenty of time for filming, he loved the attention and it painted a positive picture of him that wasn’t true,” Miller said.

Miller’s team publicized the show “relentlessly” — thousands of ads “spread the fantasy of Trump’s supposed business acumen were beamed over the airwaves to nearly every household in the country.” “The image of Trump that we promoted was highly exaggerated. In its own way, it was ‘fake news’ that we spread over America like a heavy snowstorm. I never imagined that the picture we painted of Trump as a successful businessman would help catapult him to the White House,” he said.

Read more: https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/4938528-donald-trump-the-apprentice/

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Link to U.S. News & World Report COMMENTARY - We Created a Monster: Trump Was a TV Fantasy Invented for 'The Apprentice'

And the ENTIRE "Media Industrial Complex" has CONTINUED to promote 45 as if this election were part of some big "reality show". This is what happens when broadcast networks combine their "news divisions" with their "entertainment divisions".

[Ray Bruns]

1. May I suggest harakiri?

[marble falls]

3. Death by a thousand paper cuts with lemon juice chasers?

[marble falls]

2. NOW he realizes. The residuals must have gone dry. Not impressed with his mea culpa a bit.

[LibinMo]

4. 25 years???

I’m unimpressed too. And outraged. I never watched a single episode of that show. Donald Trump made me cringe even back then.

[marble falls]

9. I haven't seen a minute of it. I did see a youtube of Meat Loaf browbeating a clueless Gary Busey and realized ...

... I had to work up a sympathy for Busey and that TFG had a skill at bringing out the worst in someone.

His knack is getting others to do the dirty work for free.

[NBachers]

5. Nope - I never watched a second of those shows.

[IbogaProject]

6. TV has been used to lie since the beginning

It helped consolidate public opinion and lead to things like the McCarthy hearings and later helped push the big corporations take over of Pharmaceuticals, health care and fossil fuels.

[samsingh]

7. these guys also ignore what they're doing when making money and then years later

do a mea culpa to get it off their chests.

[FakeNoose]

8. John Miller tells a few truths about Chump, so this is a worthwhile read

However he doesn't tell the MAJOR truth about that show ... they never intended for "The Apprentice" to be about Chump at all. The idea was that they would feature a different business tycoon - a successful person in different industries - each year. They wanted people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, etc. - and it would be somebody different each season.

That never panned out because the successful businesspeople had no time for such a show. The only people who agreed to do it year after year was Chump. So they were stuck with him. I wish NBC had cancelled it after the first season.

[BaronChocula]

10. Miller gives himself wayyyyy too much credit

Trump has been a conscience-less self-promoter since the 80s and that was one of the things at which he was actually successful. We may remember his cameos on "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" or in "Home Alone 2." We may remember his ex-wife's cameo in "The First Wives Club." Not that "The Apprentice" hurt in any way.

What propelled trump politically was that he was a low-rent loud-mouthed bigot known to be rich. That was what helped him hijack the birther movement. It wasn't so much TA.

John Miller may just be looking to market himself by telling the world "I'm so good that I can create monsters. Hire me."

[maxsolomon]

11. That show put him in the living rooms of millions of gullible Americans.

Before, people knew who he was - but at a remove. Readers of Vanity Fair, or New Yorkers knew enough to dislike him as an uncouth boor.

But NBC defined him, over and over, as a CEO/business genius, and the MAGAts believed the fiction. The people who were dumb enough to buy into Ross Perot's "we need a businessman to straighten this country out" BS were particularly susceptible.

[BaronChocula]

12. I know

I was there.
I agree that TA fed on his reputation as a businessman. I don't agree that TA is what created that image. Just as I don't agree that what boosted his appeal was "economic anxiety" as so many were eager to insist. That's all.

[4lbs]

13. For those that haven't watched the show, I'll give a synopsis based upon my

viewing of multiple episodes of the show during the years (I fell on that grenade so you don't have to)

1.) Contestants arrive at their "assignment location" or near there.

2.) Dumpy arrives, usually in a limo, sometimes he walks around a corner. Depends on the location and its proximity to his HQ. Always in a suit.

3.) He gives some spiel ("it is the greatest/biggest", "more money flows through here than anywhere else in the world!", etc.) and then their tasks, after being separated into teams with a 'captain'. Sometimes the teams are picked by the captains, other times, Dumpy himself separates them (boys vs. girls, old vs young, etc.) Often the 'captain' that was on the winning team last week goes first. Usually the 'winning' team is the one that sells the most or achieves the most.

4.) The teams come up with a business plan and try to execute it. All of this is videotaped and recorded.

5.) Afterwards, the teams face "The Boardroom", where Dumpy sits as the CEO, and sometimes his own kids are there, other times, a VP or some other company exec is there.

6.) They announce the winning team, which is SAFE from elimination (everyone on that team.)

7.) The losing team captain faces the chopping block and he/she can nominate 1 or 2 people from his/her team to go there and try to explain themselves as to why they lost.

8.) This "boardroom" really takes place over 2 or 3 hours, but they often narrow it down to about 7 or 8 minutes for TV. People are asked questions as to why they did certain things, and the 'captain' is often given an opportunity to throw one of the other 2 'under the bus'. ("Who should be eliminated?" "This person." "Why? " )

9.) Dumpy looks around and sometimes nods when others talk. He likely already made his decision, but is letting others talk. On a few rare occasions, he changes his mind because a person talks themselves into elimination.

10.) This is where Dumpy developed his signature "You're Fired!" slogan, because the one person that is eliminated (occasionally if a team did very poorly, he would do a double).leaves the show, and the other members of the losing team sit around and wait outside, presumable the entire time, probably all 2 or 3 hours.

I would often ask why don't they simply review the video, because EVERYTHING that was said and done by both teams was recorded, so.... why even ask them questions? Oh yeah, ratings and such.

The final winner supposedly gets to work as an executive in one of his many (?) (soon to fail) construction projects, which is determined to be the prize at the beginning of the season.

This rarely happens though. The 'winner' sometimes gets a one-year deal where a more accomplished exec 'looks over their shoulder' the entire time.

[Blue_Roses]

14. Oh now he speaks up...