As a kid, every morning before we went to school, my sister and I would watch the Today Show as we ate our breakfast. It was part of our routine. We would get out of bed, brush our teeth, get dressed, eat, and then watch the morning news with Matt Lauer. I watched it when his co-host was Katie Couric, then when it became Meredith Vieira, and finally with Ann Curry. It was the Ann Curry situation that alienated me from the Today Show and Matt Lauer.
In 2011 after Meredith Vieira announced she was leaving the show, Ann Curry became Lauer’s new co-host. Quickly, controversy erupted. NBC started falling in its ratings to ABC’s morning program, Good Morning America. Today’s long-held record as the number 1 morning program since 1995 was under threat and NBC executives had to act fast. Ann Curry, a woman who had worked for Today for 15 years, reported from across the world, and given her all to the network, became the scapegoat for the falling ratings.
She was forced to leave Today only a year after she had started co-hosting. Many speculate that Lauer had disliked her as his co-host and was the mastermind behind the idea. Lauer and NBC denied these claims. Shortly after Curry’s departure from Today, there were op-eds that called “too newsy” and blamed her for a lack of chemistry with Matt Lauer. One article even blamed her mixed-race background (Curry is a Japanese-American) as a reason for the fallout.
These were atrocious assessments! In actuality, it was Lauer’s presence that was bringing the show’s ratings down. One NBC executive at the time disagreed with others saying “[Lauer] was looking aloof, a little bit holier-than-thou, and pompous” next to Curry. Other executives disregarded this assessment and the blame fell to Curry. Her successor, Savannah Guthrie, still has not brought Today back ahead of Good Morning America, suggesting that the rating problem was much more than just the charisma of the female anchor.
During the Curry crisis, Lauer was signed to an estimated $25 million contract. The contrast between Lauer and Curry’s treatment, since they both had over 15 years of experience working at the network, displays a blatant inequality in how the co-hosts were treated. As ratings failed, one was scapegoated and ostracized while the other gained millions of dollars and the largest contract in morning television. The fallout from the situation led Today to lose nearly 20% of its audience.
Lauer’s recent firing at Today after accusations of sexual misconduct comes as no surprise in the midst of the all the men who have been outed since the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Countless powerful men have been accused including CBS’s former morning anchor, Charlie Rose. What I find more troubling about the Lauer situation, is the fact that (like Weinstein and other cases) people knew it was going on.
Katie Couric, a former Today anchor, even criticized Lauer for pinching her ass too much. How would this behavior ever be deemed appropriate? How could people turn a blind eye to this or Lauer’s alleged door-locking button? It is unacceptable behavior that should not be tolerated in the workplace. This should not be something hard to understand!
My father always says, “power corrupts.” This is a true assertion, no question. Something that also is true though, is that business is a business. Bill O’Reilly’s misconduct was swept under the rug for years because he was Fox News’ biggest star. I would speculate the same is true for Lauer. Something I question now is if NBC would have ever even fired Lauer if they knew they could keep this under the rug.
I wonder how many of these men outed since the Weinstein scandal have truly been fired for ethical reasons rather than from the mounting public pressure. If the public was ignorant of Lauer’s misconduct and other media sources were not investigating it, would NBC even have said anything? I hope they would have, but in my cynicism I doubt it.
The case of Ann Curry highlights an inequality in the way that employees are treated. By that stage of Lauer’s career (despite working at the network for nearly the same length of time as Curry) he had become virtually untouchable. This notion of untouchability is something that networks must scrap. It isn’t good for business or ethics, as seen in the case of Lauer. No one should be too big to be fired, or too big to be outed. Ann Curry never got what she deserved. During this time of tumult for morning television, it would only be fitting if a network gave her a second chance. History shows, she wasn’t the problem; she was the victim of an untouchable newsman.