NBC is one of America's oldest broadcasting organizations, so it'll come as no surprise
to find that the company has endured a few controversies over the years.
From celebrity outbursts to sinister cover-ups, these are the biggest scandals to hit NBC.
Since its 1952 premiere, The Today Show has grown into an NBC mainstay. Starting in 1994,
Today was helmed for over 20 years by Matt Lauer, one of the network's biggest names,
who helped the show reach the heady heights it enjoys to this day.
Lauer was also among the highest-paid people in news media, earning $20 million a year
through his last contract in 2016. That was his last contract because, the next year,
NBC fired Lauer after a review of his behavior prompted by a colleague's accusation of sexual
misconduct. In a statement, NBC News Chairman Andy Lack said:
"On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint
from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer.
It represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company's standards."
Among the many creepy details reported by Lauer's colleagues was the fact that he had
a button installed at his desk to remotely close and lock the door to his office — which at least
two women said Lauer used while alone with them in his office.
Far more lurid and damaging, stories about Lauer emerged two years later.
Vanity Fair reported that a former NBC News assistant had accused Lauer of sexual assault
and claimed NBC had covered it up. The assistant said she had repeatedly told
her NBC colleagues and superiors about the attack, but that nothing ever came of it.
Billy Bush is a junior member of the Bush dynasty, cousin to a governor and a president,
and nephew to another president. But this Bush pursued a career outside of politics,
and has been a successful radio and television personality for over 20 years.
That all came crashing down, however, when, during his time on Access Hollywood,
Bush had a very candid behind-the-scenes chat with then-TV celebrity Donald Trump.
The recording of this meeting went down in political history when it was
publicly revealed ten years later, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
By 2016, Bush had joined NBC's Today Show, and Donald Trump had become the Republican candidate
for president. Just a month before election day, barely a year after Bush had joined Today,
the audio of Bush and Trump's conversation was leaked to the media. In the recording, Bush can
be heard laughing as Trump explains how his fame allows him to freely grope and harass women.
NBC fired Bush before the end of the weekend. He later told CBS:
"It was leaked on a Friday, and then Sunday morning I walked [...] to go
back to work and the driver said, 'I'm sorry. They've canceled the car.'"
"I called my lawyer and I said 'are we okay?' and he said… 'nope.'"
Bush now works at Extra, an entertainment news show, where he uses his experience of getting
fired to secure interviews with celebrities who have likewise experienced public scrutiny.
For many decades, Harvey Weinstein was one of the most powerful people in Hollywood.
Just a few years ago, however, he became the principal villain of the
#MeToo movement after being accused and convicted of multiple sex crimes.
Journalist Ronan Farrow's exposé on Weinstein did more than reveal Weinstein's atrocious
conduct, however — it also revealed the pernicious influence he had in the media.
According to Farrow, Weinstein's behavior was an open secret. At the time, he wrote:
"Weinstein and his associates used nondisclosure agreements,
payoffs, and legal threats to suppress [victims'] accounts."
Furthermore, Farrow alleged that NBC had been covering up for Matt Lauer for years,
that Weinstein knew about it, and that he had used blackmail
to dissuade NBC from reporting on his own crimes.
Entertainment journalist Paula Froelich later told WYNC that she personally witnessed an example of
Weinstein's corrupting status in the media in 2000 when he assaulted a journalist at a party,
in front of other journalists, and nobody reported on it. She said:
"People don't want to report on the table; they want a seat at it."
Brian Williams is an old-school newsman. He started reporting almost immediately after
dropping out of college before joining NBC news in 1993, where he would stay for the
rest of his career. He rose to become anchor of the network's premiere news program, NBC Nightly
News, in 2004, garnering several excellence in broadcasting awards over the following decade.
Nightly News brought in an average of 9 million to 10 million viewers a night,
and Williams was one of the highest-paid people in news.
Over time, however, a number of Iraq War veterans began publicly questioning
a story that Williams liked to tell about being shot at in a helicopter.
"Two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire, including the
one I was in." "No kidding."
"RPG and AK-47."
He was also accused of inventing stories about his experiences in New Orleans
following Hurricane Katrina. Before long, other outlets had begun examining Williams' reporting,
and NBC quickly launched an investigation. In a memo to NBC personnel explaining why he
was being suspended and demoted, NBC News president Deborah Turness said:
"Brian misrepresented events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War."
After a six-month suspension, Williams returned to the air as an anchor on
MSNBC, where his $10 million annual salary remains intact.
Despite billions of dollars invested in advertising and infrastructure, hundreds of
millions of people watching, and tens of thousands of spectators in the stands, the 1996 Atlanta
Olympics has become known for only one thing: death. Twenty-nine-year-old Eric Robert Rudolph,
enraptured by hateful right-wing propaganda, planted a series of bombs at the Olympic venues.
One person was killed in the blasts, and over 100 more were injured.
Richard Jewell was a former cop and security guard at the Olympics. He alerted authorities
to a suspicious package stuffed beneath some bleachers. A bomb squad was called in and the
area evacuated — right before the device exploded. At the 10th anniversary of the Atlanta Olympics,
the Georgia governor honored Jewell for his heroism on the night of the bombing.
Before his bravery was recognized, however,
Jewell was subject to an intense media spectacle that painted him as the terrorist.
In the wake of multiple media reports suggesting he was involved with the plot, Jewell sued the
Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Tom Brokaw and NBC News, CNN, the New York Post, and Time magazine.
Some of Jewell's lawsuits were thrown out, but NBC was among those who settled, reportedly paying him
over $500,000 — far more than the 'nuisance value' that is usually offered to potential plaintiffs.
One of America's "Big Three" news anchors for two decades, legendary broadcaster Tom
Brokaw started out with NBC in 1966 and only announced his retirement in January 2021. He's
penned several bestselling books over the years, and has received numerous awards in journalism.
Brokaw was also the only anchor to have helmed all three of NBC News' flagship programs: Today,
Nightly News, and Meet the Press. In 2014, Brokaw was even awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom, the highest honor a president can bestow on a civilian, by President Obama.
But five years later, he stoked up a damaging controversy for his network,
when he was made to apologize for telling Latinos to learn English.
During a live panel discussion on NBC's Meet the Press regarding then-President
Trump's proposed border wall in 2019, Brokaw repeated a number of
racist sentiments from people he had spoken with. Brokaw went on to argue:
"I also happen to believe the hispanics should work
harder at assimilation. That's one of the things I've been saying for a long time."
The online backlash was swift, and NBC's social media was flooded with
angry excoriations of Brokaw's statement as ignorant at best, if not outright xenophobic.
Brokaw later took to Twitter himself to say:
"I am sorry, truly sorry my comments were offensive to many. The great enduring
american tradition of diversity is to be celebrated and cherished."
In 2012, the seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. Prior to the
shooting, Zimmerman had been following Martin, and even called 911 to report Martin as suspicious.
In their coverage of the events, NBC aired what many people called an edited-out-of-context
cut of that 911 call. During their broadcast, Zimmerman is heard saying:
"This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks Black."
What NBC's viewers didn't hear, however, was that Zimmerman's assertion that Martin was
black had actually been made in response to the 911 dispatcher asking:
"Okay, and this guy — is he white, Black, or Hispanic?"
"He looks Black."
After the segment aired, NBC publicly apologized to Zimmerman, saying that:
"It became evident that there was an error made in the production process that we deeply regret."
NBC fired at least three journalists involved in allowing the edited call to air.
Zimmerman then sued NBC for defamation, alleging that NBC's editing made him appear to be a racist,
which exposed him to public ridicule and led to his own emotional distress.
Two years after Martin was killed, a judge threw out Zimmerman's lawsuit. The court ruled that,
since he had pursued a course of conduct that ultimately led to Martin's death, Zimmerman had
become a public figure. As such, he needed to prove that the network had acted with malicious
intent — which is the standard required to prevail in a libel suit involving a public figure.
The sitcom 30 Rock was an award-winning, long-running star of NBC's primetime lineup.
Running for seven seasons, 30 Rock was a satirical take on the experiences of the show's
star, writer, and producer, Tina Fey, as head writer for another NBC property, Saturday Night
Live. The crew of 30 Rock was dotted with SNL alumni, from the writing staff to the producers,
but mostly notably by Fey's fellow star comedian, Tracy Morgan. Although Morgan only played a
supporting role on the series, he frequently stole the show and quickly became a fan favorite.
Unfortunately, he was just as prone to making the wrong kind of headlines as his character.
"I'm saying the Disneyfication of New York is over, everyone. At the stroke of midnight,
your Lexus is going to turn back into a high pile of rats, fighting over a human finger."
Morgan got his start as a stand-up comedian and never stopped performing
live — even while filming 30 Rock. At a 2011 comedy show in Nashville,
Morgan made a joke that was widely criticized as homophobic, and NBC was quick to distance
themselves from their star's comments. One NBC executive said at the time:
"Tracy's comments reflect negatively on both 30 Rock and NBC — two very all-inclusive and diverse
organizations, and we have made it clear to him that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated."
Morgan apologized as well, and Fey publicly
said she hoped his apology would be accepted. However, she also added:
"Stand-up comics may have the right to 'work out' their material in its ugliest and rawest
form in front of an audience, but the violent imagery of Tracy's rant was disturbing to me."
Seinfeld was a juggernaut in sitcom history. Over its nine seasons, the infamous "show about
nothing" was nominated for 186 different awards, winning 74, including 27 Emmys.
And the show has staying power, too. When Hulu had exclusive rights to Seinfeld,
the average age of their viewers was just 27 years old — someone who would have been in the
2nd grade when Seinfeld's finale first aired. The show has since moved to Netflix, as part of
a deal for which Jerry Seinfeld was paid over $100 million. Vulture has even calculated the
worth of the Seinfeld financial empire as over $3 billion since it first entered syndication.
And although the show's various cast members have stirred up their fair share of controversies
over the years, Seinfeld itself was actually relatively scandal-free. There is, however,
one outlier: the episode in which Kramer burns a Puerto Rican flag by accident.
At the time, the president of the National Puerto Rican Coalition said:
"It is unacceptable that the Puerto Rican flag be
used by 'Seinfeld' as a stage prop under any circumstances."
"The Puerto Rican Day" story sparked such outrage that everyone involved officially apologized,
even though many of the show's cast and crew insisted that the episode wasn't offensive at all.
NBC clearly disagreed, however, and pulled the episode from syndication for four years.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about TV scandals
are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.