Matt Lauer’s apology wasn’t much of an apology

Vox

The fired Today host may have said he was “truly sorry,” but his entire statement is “the latest iteration in the popular new genre of powerful men acknowledging their misdeeds while attempting to avoid admitting to serious wrongdoing,” says Constance Grady. She points out that the bulk of his statement is devoted to his regret at being caught. “For an ‘apology,’ it’s less ‘I am sorry that I did something terrible’ and more, ‘I am embarrassed that I was caught,’” she says. Eric Deggans adds that there has become “a sad ritual to these sexual harassment/assault media scandals; subject denies every allegation is true, yet still apologizes without admitting serious guilt; those still employed express sorrow, praise those who came forward.”

ALSO:

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• NBC News reports there may be as many as eight accusers
• CNN president Jeff Zucker, former Today executive producer and NBC boss, said today of Matt Lauer: “No one ever brought to me, or to my knowledge, there was never, there was never a complaint about Matt. There was never a suggestion of that kind of deviant, predatory behavior. Not even a whisper of it, nothing like that.”
• Why Lauer is unlikely to ever be prosecuted for his alleged sexual assault of an NBC staffer in 2001
• Female Today staffers who didn’t flirt with Lauer were not considered good colleagues, People reports
• Today fans still showed up at Rockefeller  Center in force the day after Lauer’s ouster
• GMA aired some of Lauer’s troubling clips this morning, while on CBS Gayle King said her thoughts are with Lauer’s wife and kids
• Paparazzi caught Lauer wearing sunglasses yesterday outside his Hamptons home