UNION NEWS CALL
NBC staffers cite agita over sexual scandals
Staffers at NBC’s digital news division are pushing to unionize in order to boost job protection — including the ability to publicly criticize the network’s brass without fear of retaliation.
The surprise memo from the NewsGuild of New York said the decision to press for a union was spurred partly by Ronan Farrow’s bombshell book, “Catch and Kill.”
In the book, Farrow alleges NBC News president Noah Oppenheim and Chairman Andy Lack spiked his explosive story about Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct in 2017, citing Weinstein’s threat to leak information about sexual-misconduct allegations against “Today” host Matt Lauer.
The book “highlighted serious questions as to how NBC News has handled incidents of sexual misconduct in the workplace as well as the opaque processes and procedures for reporting on and exposing powerful predators,” the union said in the memo.
“NBC News repeatedly refused calls for an independent review on both counts despite numerous such requests from staff,” the memo continued. “This lack of transparency and NBC News’ troubling trend of passing on stories which investigate the powerful ultimately harm our credibility as journalists.”
The employees said they could only address these issues, as well as the alleged “gender and race wage gap” at the company, through the protection of a union.
“It’s been painful for a lot of people to see headlines and feel like they don’t have the space to talk about what’s going on in their own workplace,” said Nigel Chiwaya, a data journalist who is involved in the organizing the union.
Last week, Rachel Maddow, the star anchor of sister network MSNBC, called out her bosses live on the air ahead of an interview with Farrow. In addition to t1heir handling of Farrow’s reporting, she questioned why parent company NBCUniversal has not launched an independent review of Lauer’s behavior and the company’s response to it.
During seven months of reporting on Weinstein for NBC, Farrow claims he was told by his bosses multiple times to stop reporting. Oppenheim told Farrow his reporting was not ready for broadcast because it didn’t include any Weinstein accusers on the record. Farrow would eventually take his reporting to The New Yorker, which published the story a month later, in October 2017. It went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.
A month after the story was published, NBC fired Lauer after receiving a complaint of sexual misconduct against him. Lack told staffers in a memo the complaint was the first time he had heard about the behavior.
But in his book, Farrow alluded to multiple complaints against Lauer. He detailed an explosive one, in which ex-NBC staffer Brooke Nevils claimed Lauer anally raped her while on assignment during the Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in 2014. He has denied the allegation.
Nevils left NBC with a seven-figure settlement. Once word got out about the rape allegation, Lack and Oppenheim emphasized to NBC employees that it was not “an assault” or “criminal,” the book said.
Since “Catch and Kill” was published last month, staffers in the halls of 30 Rockefeller Plaza have been suffused with anger and a sense of defeat amid concern that top brass have not directly addressed Farrow’s claims.