NBC Executive Andy Lack Is a Super Genius.
Way to go NBC News Chief Andy Lack on your hiring/firing of Megyn Kelly. I come not to praise Andy Lack, but I sure hope that NBC will bury him too. No, I do not think that Lack’s attempt to woo crazy Fox viewers to NBC with the Megyn Kelly babe bait will be the issue that takes out Andy Lack. Variety had an an article out that indicates all the other things that may bring down Lack.
One biggie is that Andy Lack doesn’t take news about sexual harassment seriously:
NBC News has been criticized multiple times in recent months for its handling of sensitive stories related to sexual harassment. It declined, for example, to air an explosive segment by journalist Ronan Farrow and investigative producer Rich McHugh that revealed accusations of untoward behavior by Weinstein. Farrow took that reporting to The New Yorker, where it won him a Pulitzer Prize. “There were multiple executives involved in the decision to stop our reporting,” said McHugh in a statement. “Each [was] in some way complicit in the silencing of victims.” NBC News has said an extensive review of Farrow’s reporting found that it wasn’t sufficient for airing at the time it was presented, largely because it did not include someone willing to go on the record about allegations on camera.
NBC News faced similar opprobrium in the fall of 2016 when it was scooped by The Washington Post on the existence of a tape from “Access Hollywood” — a show that also falls under the NBCUniversal umbrella — featuring a younger Donald Trump making lewd remarks about women and acknowledging he felt he had carte blanche to grab them by their genitals.
And other screw ups by Lack:
Since Brian Williams stepped down under a cloud from “NBC Nightly News” in 2015, the division has been thrust into an unenviable number of controversies. Sitting on a blockbuster video of Donald Trump talking about sexual assault? Check. Letting an exclusive probe of harassment claims against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein become the property of a rival news outlet? Check. Enduring embarrassing claims of unwanted sexual behavior against household personalities like Lauer and Tom Brokaw? Check.
“NBC is filled with hardworking and dedicated journalists — I know, I worked there myself earlier in my career — but these scandals have made news-gathering much harder for NBC,” says Mark Feldstein, chair of broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
And it appears that Lack loves those sexually harassing employees of his:
New ones keep erupting. The Daily Beast’s Sept. 21 story alleged that Lack has a history of being slow to act when allegations of harassing behavior by employees under his supervision have been brought to him, and claimed his friendships with veteran anchors and producers may have delayed his response to recent ones.
Anyone who has watched MSNBC has seen Lack’s efforts to force out progressive voices and replace them with conservative Republicans or bothsiderists.
