With the firing yesterday of Matt Lauer, NBC News apparently decided that it needed to clean its own house before other news outlets reported on what "everybody knew" about Lauer's transgressions. As the repercussions of sexual misconduct roil across the nation - excerpt for in the White House where the molester-in-chief is now denying the accuracy of the Access Hollywood tape he previously admitted to - what is striking is that in most instances the news of the transgressions were known to others before hand , sometimes by many people. Personally, I cannot grasp the mindset of the men involved who due to their positions of power thought they could force themselves on anyone they wanted. A piece in Vanity Fair looks at the situation of Lauer which tracts this same pattern (a piece in Variety gives more lurid details here). Here are excerpts:
For weeks, amidst the deluge of revelations about sexual misconduct by powerful men in media, executives at NBC News had been hearing rumors of stories being reported at Variety and The New York Times about Lauer’s alleged sexual relationships with NBC bookers and producers. Those executives asked Lauer “if there was anything that he thought we should know or could fit into this category, and he adamantly denied that there was.” According to one NBC insider, Lack reported to other top executives that Lauer had denied any sexual impropriety.
Then, on Monday, a woman who had already met with The New York Times, but who wished to remain anonymous, went with her lawyer to meet with representatives from NBC’s human-resources department to lodge a formal complaint about Lauer. According to a person familiar with her complaint, neither “rape” nor “assault” was used in her complaint to NBC. Nevertheless, the complaint was serious and specific enough to result in the firing of NBC News’s biggest star and most powerful figure. The allegation related to an inappropriate sexual relationship that started when the colleagues were covering the Olympics in Sochi.
Lauer had been dogged by stories of infidelity for years, so much so that he had become a regular target of the tabloid press. That focus narrowed his world, according to a former colleague. “His pattern was that of a beleaguered person who was constantly being pursued by The National Enquirer,” the former colleague told me. . . . . “So I think the only place he could really operate was in his office and then when he was on the road. And there was a lot of him bringing attractive young women into his office for counseling and where he would talk to them about their career.” The Variety story about Lauer’s sexual misconduct, published Wednesday, based on the accounts of more than 10 current and former employees, reports that he could lock the door to his office from his desk.
There were, according to the former colleague, two groups of women that Lauer seemed to focus his attention on: interns, pages, and production assistants in charge of running scripts in the morning; and also bookers.
Insiders at NBC remained incredulous that NBC’s top brass was not aware of Lauer’s behavior with women. “The real focus right now should be on this complete disingenuous behavior by NBC to say, ‘I’m shocked,’” one former NBC colleague told me. Lauer has been prized and protected by a succession of NBC News presidents. . . . . “I don’t know what everyone is so surprised by,” said one high-level industry source. “This has been going on for months and months and everybody knew it and it was just going to be which girl came forward, and who reported it first.”
Lauer’s downfall could have been hastened by any number of his current or former colleagues, or at least that was the word inside NBC circles. “There’s a lot of speculation that Megyn Kelly was directly involved in getting women to come forward,” the former colleague told me. Kelly, who reportedly came to NBC with a whopping $23 million package and who has struggled to get traction at 9 a.m., reportedly felt the heat from Lauer’s disapproval, this person said. (An insider close to Kelly disputed both claims.) “Even if she wasn’t going to replace him, he was going to have a shiv in her back any day. You could already see reports of him saying that it was a mistake.”
Similarly, NBC insiders saw the hand of Ann Curry, whom Lauer ousted, in his demise, and possibly even Billy Bush. (Curry and Bush could not be reached for comment.) The repercussions inside NBC are unlikely to stop with Lauer.
As the national reckoning with sexual harassment continues, the question of Lauer’s improprieties looms large over NBC’s editorial decision to pass on Ronan Farrow’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein. “They were sitting in a glass house and they knew it,” Lauer’s former colleague said.
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