NBC Renews Contract of News President and Suspected Lauer-Enabler/Weinstein-Protector Noah Oppenheim

On Friday, Rachel Maddow says she has independently confirmed that NBC told Rowan Farrow to "pause" (meaning "kill") his Harvey Weinstein reporting.

Rachel Maddow said that she and her staff have "independently confirmed" that NBC News executives told Ronan Farrow to put a "pause in any new reporting" on Harvey Weinstein, backing up a claim he makes in his new book Catch and Kill.

Maddow devoted her monologue on her MSNBC show on Friday to Farrow’s book, before he joined her as one of her guests.

"We have independently confirmed that NBC News did that," Maddow told viewers. "That that did happen. He was told to pause his reporting."

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She also addressed another one of Farrow's claims -- that "there was a pattern at the company in terms of women making allegations against Matt Lauer and of being paid off and signing away their rights to speak about it, all before he was fired."

She said that while NBC News denies this, "as we can tell, there has never been an independent investigation of that."

But now NBC has essentially blessed the cover-up, by giving a fat new contract to the NBC News President Noah Oppenhem, who has been "credibly alleged" to have been the growth medium for NBC's rape culture.

NBC News president Noah Oppenheim’s contract was reportedly renewed by the Peacock Network despite an onslaught of negative attention surrounding Ronan Farrow's "Catch and Kill," which paints Oppenheim as a key figure in NBC's decision not to run his expose on Harvey Weinstein.

Farrow's former NBC News producer Rich McHugh, who accused Oppenheim and his boss Andy Lack of a "massive breach of journalistic integrity" in a scathing Vanity Fair column earlier this month, slammed the network's parent company for its vote of confidence.

"I take it that no Comcast board member has read Ronan's book or my article. I am sad for all NBC News employees that the status quo has been blessed," McHugh told Fox News.

Former NBC News correspondent Linda Vester agreed.

"Comcast/NBC Universal is extending the contract of an individual who lied to staff and shareholders when he said they 'have no secrets and nothing to hide.' Not only does it encourage harassment victims to start telling those secrets, it invites a shareholder lawsuit against Comcast," Vester told Fox News. "In my view, shareholders could sue the company for breach of fiduciary duty by using corporate assets to make secret payoffs for personal wrongs. What shareholder would agree to Comcast secretly using their money for coverups?"

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Shaunna Thomas, a co-founder of UltraViolet, a leading national women's organization, recently blasted Oppenheim by name, saying he "failed to hold sexual abusers accountable" and "failed to combat a toxic culture across newsrooms."

Now former FoxNews staffers such as Gretchen Carlson want Fox to lift their NDAs, as NBC supposedly did.

And there's some question about that-- NBC claims that if you ask to have your NDA lifted as far as sexual harassment, they'll grant it. So far we know of no takers, and NBC can be so limited and so vague in what is being lifted that people would be in fear of lawsuit for saying something that could be argued to not have been cleared.

NBC could, for example, claim to lift the NDAs as regards sexual harassment claims -- but then claim that statements about NBC's management covering the claims up or enabling the harassers are in violation of the NDA.

I don't think I'd feel comfortable talking without a legal document ending the NDA that was both explicit and expansive, not giving NBC room to quibble what they can and cannot sue over.

But anyway, they want Fox to scuttle the NDAs.

Coming in the wake of Rachel Maddow's announcement Friday on her MSNBC show that parent corp. NBCUniversal would allow former staffers to get out of their non-disclosure agreements, at least six former Fox News employees, including Gretchen Carlson, are asking for similar treatment. Carlson was the first woman at Fox to sue Roger Ailes, the former news director at Fox who was forced out by her disclosures. Carlson settled with the company in 2016, and her story is covered in the new film Bombshell.

"All women at Fox News and beyond forced to sign NDAs should be released from them immediately, giving them back the voices they deserve," Carlson told Vanity Fair.

Well, maybe they should be lifted, but don't play the hero or victim too much as regards the NDA: You signed that in exchange for a bigger chunk of money than you otherwise would have gotten.

I kind of hate Fox so I'm kinda keen to see what these women might say. I've got a couple of Fox NeverTrumpers I've got my eye on as far as sloppy-drunk inappropriate-touchers.

Tucker Carlson blasted NBC and Noah Oppenheim a week ago:

posted by Ace of Spades at 04:54 PM

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