Shortly before the controversy that erupted after a tweet about the GOP and a certain television advertisement was uploaded to the MSNBC Twitter account, network president Phil Griffin claimed his shows do not favor one side of the aisle over the other, the New York Daily News reported.
In an interview with The Daily Beast published on Thursday -- before the Twitter incident -- Griffin said he hires people who "fit the sensibility" but added "if you're a democrat in trouble ... you're not going to get a free ride if you did wrong."
Griffin also suggested that Roger Ailes does nothing to manage the clear political favoritism over at Fox News but commended their sucess.
"He's had a huge impact on media," he said of Ailes, though reiterated his goal to "stay true to the facts."
"We're going to be totally transparent," Griffin said. "If you make a mistake, you've got to address it, and we've done that throughout all the last six years that I've been here."
On Thursday, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus demanded an apology from MSNBC after a staffer posted a tweet a day prior that read, "Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family."
They later uploaded two tweets apologizing for the comment.
"We are deleting the earlier offensive tweet. It does not reflect msnbc's position and we apologize," which was followed by "Earlier, this account tweeted an offensive line about a new Cheerios ad. We deeply regret it. It does not reflect the position of msnbc."
It was later announced that the staffer responsible for the tweet was fired. Additionally, Richard Wolffe, the executive editor of MSNBC.com, criticized the tweet as well.
"The Cheerios tweet from @MSNBC was dumb, offensive and we've taken it down. That's not who we are at msnbc," Wolffe tweeted.
