It’s the latest evolution for scrappy nonprofit Mississippi Today, founded seven years ago by former NBC News executive Andy Lack. Pictured: Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe (center), with her parents, Bethel and Chris Wolfe, celebrating the news that she had won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in Jackson, Miss., in May. (Rogelio V. Solis/AP)
Andrew Lack’s NBC News Tenure Mixed
As NBC veterans digest a reorganization announced Monday by NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, what was not entirely surprising was the departure of Andrew Lack. He had for some time been seen as exiting, perhaps at the end of the year. What was a bit surprising was choice of Cesar Conde to lead a newly formed NBCUniversal News Group, which will include not just NBC News and MSNBC, which Lack had overseen, but also CNBC, which is led by Mark Hoffman.
Quietly, NBC’s Andrew Lack, news chairman, has been the key person behind Mississippi Today, an online news site that has been operating for three years. It is one of several experimental approaches to journalism seeking traction during a painful time of retrenchment for local news.
Exclusives
Megyn Kelly’s slow-motion exit from NBC News has turned into an all-out legal battle. Kelly’s 9 a.m. show was canceled last week, but her contract goes through 2020. So now there’s a protracted negotiation taking place — and in an unusual move, Kelly’s lawyer Bryan Freedman is talking about it publicly. “Andy Lack needs to stop,” Freedman said Tuesday, accusing the NBC News chair of leaking information about the negotiations. On Wednesday, Freedman upped the ante with another statement.
Megyn Kelly is off the air and heading toward the door at NBC, but it looks like any exit won’t be as smooth as the former Fox News Channel host may have anticipated. Over the weekend and today, increasingly intractable NBC News boss Andy Lack has made it clear in talks with Kelly’s reps that a hefty payout for the rest of her $69 million contract is a non-starter, well-positioned sources say.
With NBC officially pulling the plug on Megyn Kelly Today after just over a year, new questions are emerging about NBC News chairman Andy Lack’s leadership and what increasingly looks like his catastrophic decision to poach Kelly from Fox News last year for a three-year, $69 million contract.
Ronan Farrow tweeted that NBC News Chairman Andy Lack’s statement contained several false and misleading statements — in particular Lack’s claim that Farrow had no women ready to publicly identify themselves with their accusations against Harvey Weinstein.
President Donald Trump set aside his complaints about tech companies and foreign leaders, at least for the moment, to return to his comfort zone of blasting the TV news business. In three morning tweets the president said the “hatred and extreme bias of me by @CNN has clouded their thinking and made them unable to function.” He also ripped into NBC News, anchor Lester Holt and president Andy Lack.
NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack said on Tuesday that the president’s attacks on some media outlets won’t deter his organization from doing its job. NBC News was one of the organizations specifically cited by Trump last month in his tweet about the “fake news” media that is the “enemy of the American people.” Said Lack: “We’re not the opposition party and we’re not in a popularity contest with this administration or any other administration.”
NBCUniversal isn’t finished tinkering with MSNBC. While the cable-news network’s daytime schedule has largely been reworked since February, there are likely more changes to come, said Andrew Lack, the veteran TV news executive who rejoined the company in April to supervise both NBC News and MSNBC. “It’s just the beginning. We are early days.”
Andrew Lack has returned to network news, a place he is said to be comfortable. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t facing some uncomfortable decisions.
In his first public comments about the saga, NBC News chief Andy Lack acknowledged the damage done to the network by the Brian Williams scandal. A resolution will come “soon.”
NBC News President Andy Lack is now beginning to take an active role in the herculean task of trying to right the cable news channel. Specifically, Lack is now often attending MSNBC chief Phil Griffin‘s 11:30 a.m. editorial meetings; and, to quote one witness, Lack regularly appears “underwhelmed” with the story pitches.
Andrew Lack returns to the Peacock Network as chairman of NBC News today, and speculation is rife about his first moves as he battles to restore the news division’s tarnished credibility. Lack, the one-time president and COO of NBC, is returning to take charge of NBC News and MSNBC.
While Andy Lack was gone from NBC, MSNBC changed from traditional news to a political network with a liberal lens. Now that it is mired in a ratings slump, Lack’s mandate as incoming chairman will be figuring out if MSNBC needs a complete overhaul or a sharpening of its mission.
Can Andy Lack Fix NBC’s News Mess?
NBC’s decision to bring in a former NBC News chief, Andrew Lack, to stabilize a division that seems rudderless at the moment would appear to be a good one — at least on the surface.
NBCUniversal formally announced today that Lack is returning to the company in the role he had from 1993 to 2001, albeit with a new title — chairman of NBC News and MSNBC. When he gets back to his old office in Rockefeller Center, he’ll be greeted with a welcome basket full of problems that include handling the future of his close friend NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors, where Andrew Lack has worked just since January, has announced his departure. NBCUniversal yesterday was wrapping up talks to bring back Lack as news chief in hopes of restoring the division’s stature.
Former NBC News president Andrew Lack’s return to 30 Rock — he is currently in talks about a “top job” in the news division — would catalyze a major shakeup among the executive leadership and would likely signal Brian Williams’ return to the network, current and former high-level NBC News staff say.
An executive at NBC Universal who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was a personnel matter said that if an agreement is reached, Lack, a veteran executive who ran NBC’s news division from 1993 to 2001, would return in a lead role at the NBC News Group, which includes NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC. He would bring extensive news experience in the U.S. market to a leadership team that now lacks it.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors announced today that it intends to hire journalist and media executive Andrew Lack as CEOof the federal agency that oversees the five networks and broadcasting operations of U.S. international media. Those networks are Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio and TV Martí, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
