NBC News president confronted by staffers over Matt Lauer rape allegation

The Daily Beast

NBC News president Noah Oppenheim today "faced tough questions from the network’s veteran journalists, many of whom demanded further details on how network brass handled allegations against Lauer, as well as Oppenheim’s relationship with disgraced movie executive Harvey Weinstein," reports The Daily Beast's Maxwell Trani on the aftermath of Ronan Farrow's Catch and Kill book excerpt revealing ex-NBC News staffer Brooke Nevils' rape allegation. "According to multiple employees present on the call, staffers demanded specific answers about when management knew about the Lauer misconduct claims, and confronted Oppenheim on why NBC decided against hiring an outside investigator. One employee declared to the boss that 'we deserve answers from you.'" Staffers specifically wanted to know if Nevils had informed the network that Lauer raped her when she initially filed her complaint. When Lauer was fired, NBC News said Lauer had "engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace” that was “a clear violation of our company’s standards.” One staffer wanted to know if Nevils specifically used the word "assault" when she reported her affair with Lauer. Oppenheim declined to answer, citing the "person's confidentiality." That prompted NBC News' highly respected justice correspondent Pete Williams to specifically ask about the "confidentiality" response. Oppenheim said NBC News' statement on Lauer's firing used words that “were carefully chosen to characterize it exactly the same way that her attorney was characterizing it. That confidentiality is not something that I am ever going to breach, not only for her sake. The whole point of that is so she can tell her story whenever, however she chooses to and she is doing so now, I think that is appropriate.” Trani also reports Oppenheim attempted to distance himself from Weinstein after Farrow revealed a friendly email exchange between them. "The NBC News president assured staff that he did not have a close relationship with Weinstein, and had only met him once," reports Trani. "As an example, Oppenheim pointed out that he gave a bottle of Grey Goose vodka gifted to him by Weinstein to his assistant, and noted that Weinstein didn’t seem to know that the NBC News president doesn’t drink."

ALSO:

• NBC News staffers greeted Ronan Farrow's new revelations with sadness, anger, frustration and disgust: “I honestly want to throw up,” one anonymous NBC News employee tells The Daily Beast. Another veteran NBC News employee angrily remarked: “I shouldn’t be hearing about this from Variety. We should have heard it from the bosses. I hope that there are pitchforks outside the executive offices.”
• At Today show, the Matt Lauer rape allegation feels like the reopening of a wound: “You can see it written on Savannah and Hoda’s faces: Jesus, are we doing this again?" a source tells Vanity Fair. “There’s a sense of, Where’s the end of it, and where does this go from here? They’re all so exhausted by the thought of going through this again. It’s definitely a wound being reopened. It’s not good.”
• Addie Zinone, the former production assistant who admitted a consensual relationship with Lauer, blasts his open letter: "Mr. Lauer's attempts to slut-shame and rewrite history will not work," she said in the statement. "It is troubling he has no understanding of, or empathy for, the pain he has inflicted with his brazen and predatory abuse of power on young, vulnerable women who had no voice."
• Megyn Kelly defends Brooke Nevils against online attacks: "The attacks being heaped on Brooke Nevils by ppl who have no clue how unchecked power can infect a workplace are deeply misguided," she tweeted. "No sane person can think Lauer’s behavior here-that to which he *admits*-was anything less than abhorrent. How was he able to get away w/it so long?"
• Lauer's letter is going to make #MeToo history for all the wrong reasons: The letter was "lengthy, indignant and shockingly tone-deaf"