American news channel NBC News fired the host of its popular talk show The Today Show, Matt Lauer, on Wednesday, 29 November, after a complaint of sexual harassment was made against him on Monday night.
Lauer’s fellow anchor made the announcement when the show aired, reading out the statement of NBC News Chairman Andy Lack, in which he states that after a serious review of the “detailed complaint” from a colleague, Lauer was found to be in “clear violation” of the company’s standards. The statement added that though this was the first complaint against Lauer in 20 years, they had also been “presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”
Heads Roll as Dam Breaks
The sacking of Lauer is yet another in a list of high-profile terminations of media personalities that have come about due to allegations of sexual misconduct at the workplace recently.
CBS News had fired its host of CBS This Morning and 60 Minutes correspondent Charlie Rose on 21 November. On 28 November, David Sweeney, chief news editor at US National Public Radio (NPR) too stepped down after accusations of sexual harassment by three current and former NPR journalists, reports Los Angeles Times.
New York Times’ White House correspondent Glenn Thrush was suspended after an exposé of his history of sexual harassment by Vox.
In April, Fox News’ star anchor Bill O’Reilly was fired after his long history of sexual harassment, and his million-dollar settlements to the complainants.
And this is just in the media.
Spurred by the wildly contagious #MeToo campaign, a dam has burst, with women across industries coming out with accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault, most notably against Hollywood bigwigs like Harvey Weinstein, Ben Affleck, Kevin Spacey, and a number of smaller-wigs like Casey Affleck (runs in the family?) and Nick Carter (yes, the Backstreet Boy).
The US President is currently a man with 16 claims of sexual misconduct against him (excluding a taped confession of what amounts to sexual assault), but that didn’t stop the leader of the free world from tweeting this:
Potential sexual abuser in the White House notwithstanding, if the momentum on this purge continues to build, we can expect many more scalps.
(With inputs from AP)
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