Legendary NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw is the latest public figure to be accused of sexual misconduct. Three women have come forward in the past week with allegations against him. Former NBC correspondent Linda Vester and another unnamed woman said he acted inappropriately in a pair of news reports published last week. On Tuesday, a third woman came forward, saying Brokaw made an unwanted advance to her 50 years ago. Brokaw, 78, has vehemently denied any misconduct, and his current and former colleagues have rallied to his defense.
The saga began on Thursday of last week when the Washington Post and Variety published a pair of reports containing allegations against Brokaw. The Post report focused on the culture within NBC News, including the allegations against now-ousted Today show host Matt Lauer and past complaints about Brokaw. Variety published a video interview with Vester.
In both accounts, Vester says that Brokaw made unwanted advances to her on two occasions in the 1990s — once in New York, and once in London — when she was in her 20s and he was in his 50s. The Post also reported that another unnamed woman claims Brokaw “acted inappropriately toward her” in the ’90s when she was a production assistant and he was an anchor.
Brokaw has said nothing of the sort happened, describing his meetings with Vester as “brief, cordial, and appropriate,” and denying the incident with the former production assistant ever happened. He penned a late-night email, published by the Hollywood Reporter in full, claiming he was “ambushed and then perp walked” by the reports.
More than 60 of his current and former colleagues, including Maria Shriver, Rachel Maddow, and Andrea Mitchell, wrote a letter defending him as a man of “tremendous decency and integrity.”
Linda Vester and another unnamed woman say Brokaw made unwanted advances toward them in the 1990s, and a third has said he tried to kiss her in the 1960s
Vester, now 52, was hired at NBC News to be “groomed” as a foreign correspondent in 1989 and became a full-time correspondent for Weekend Today in 1993. She alleges her first negative experience with Brokaw came when the anchor in a conference room came up behind her and tickled her “up and down my waist.” She told Variety that “nobody acted like anything wrong was happening,” but she felt “humiliated” by her interaction with “the most powerful man at the network.”
In interviews with both the Post and Variety, Vester recounts two meetings with Brokaw in 1994 and 1995 during which he made advances toward her and tried to kiss her.
She says that when she was in New York on assignment in 1994, Brokaw sent her a computer message asking what she was doing that night. She replied that she was going back to Washington, DC, ahead of an incoming snowstorm — and he asked her to stay in New York to have drinks with him before saying, “Nah, too risky.” She said she replied to him saying, “I only drink milk and cookies,” and then, more pointedly, “There is nothing I would like more than a great chat with someone I admire, but if appearances are a concern, that’s valid.”
Vester says she called a friend to voice alarm, and after missing her flight back to DC, she returned to her hotel and accepted Brokaw’s proposal to come over. This is what Vester told the Post happened when he arrived:
She says the next day he reached out to her and tried to make the interaction seem consensual.
Vester says that in 1995 when she was in London she again heard from Brokaw, who left a note on her desk that said, “Milk and cookies?” She told him she was going to a restaurant with friends, and he appeared at the restaurant and ultimately went back with her to her apartment. She says he again tried to forcibly kiss her, and after she rebuffed his advances, he left.
The Post also spoke with an unnamed woman who says that when she was 24 and working as a production assistant in the 1990s, Brokaw made advances toward her. “He put my hands under his jacket and against his chest and pulled me in so close and asked me, ‘How is your job search going?’” she told the Post. She said he invited her to his office, but she did not go.
Neither woman reported any of the incidents.
A third woman, Mary Reinholz, on Tuesday published a piece in the Villager claiming that Brokaw made an unwanted advance toward her in the 1960s when she was a young reporter. Given the timeline, he would have been in his 20s. She wrote that he came to her rented home in the Los Angeles area 50 years ago to help her with a story she was working on and, while there, tried to embrace and kiss her. “I pulled away, reminding him that he was married and a tryst was out of the question,” she wrote. He acknowledged it would be “unfair” to his wife.
Brokaw vehemently denies any misconduct
“I met with Linda Vester on two occasions, both at her request, 23 years ago, because she wanted advice with respect to her career at NBC,” Brokaw said in a statement issued by NBC. “The meetings were brief, cordial and appropriate, and despite Linda’s allegations, I made no romantic overtures towards her, at that time or any other.” He also denied the unnamed woman’s allegations.
Brokaw offered an angry defense of himself in a lengthy email published in full by the Hollywood Reporter. The email begins:
He recounts his own version of his interactions with Vester, acknowledging that he did indeed meet with her but should not have gone and “emphatically did not verbally and physically attack her and suggest an affair in language right out of pulp fiction.”
Brokaw also says that he helped get her an introduction with Roger Ailes at Fox News after she said she was interested in the then-budding network. He points out that Vester never made a complaint about Fox News or Ailes, who was pushed out of the network in 2016 in light of multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him, and suggests she has a “grudge” against NBC News.
NBC News chair Andy Lack wrote a memo to staff after Brokaw’s email was published, which was also published by the Hollywood Reporter. He noted that Brokaw “emphatically denies” the allegations but that the network takes such matters “very seriously,” saying that Lauer, the former Today co-anchor, was ousted soon after allegations about him came to light.
The #MeToo conversation in media is far from over, including at NBC
Multiple current and former colleagues of Brokaw, who left his anchor chair in 2004 but remains at NBC as a special correspondent, have come to his defense. More than 60 women producers, correspondents, researchers, assistants, editors, and others who have worked with Brokaw in a letter said he had “treated each of us with fairness and respect” and characterized him as a “man of tremendous decency and integrity.” MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski tweeted, “Add me to the list,” of signees. Page Six reported some NBC News staffers felt pressured to sign the letter.
The network faces a difficult task in addressing the Brokaw allegations, especially as questions persist about what happened with Lauer.
Lack said when the network fired Lauer in November that it had received a complaint about “inappropriate sexual behavior” from the anchor just days prior. Lauer’s colleagues, including current Today co-anchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, were stunned. But questions have persisted as to what NBC knew and when, especially as multiple women have come forward. One former staffer told the Wrap in November that Lauer’s behavior was an “open secret” at the network.
Ann Curry, a longtime Today show corresponded who was ousted as co-anchor in 2012, told the Post she was alerted by a female staffer that she had been “sexually harassed physically” by Lauer in 2012 and told management about it but nothing was done. She said there was “pervasive verbal sexual harassment” at NBC, which she left in 2015.
The Post’s report on Thursday drew a response not only from Brokaw but also from Lauer, who has stayed out of the spotlight since being fired from Today. He said that his relationships with women were consensual and that “any allegations or reports of coercive aggressive, or abusive actions” on his part are “absolutely false.”
NBC last year said it is conducting a “thorough and timely review” of what happened with Lauer and will share what it learns, no matter “how painful” it is. Five months later, the review still isn’t done.
Sourse: vox.com
