Social media can be cruel, but the Meet the Press host says his goal is to leave the long-running NBC public affairs program “in a better place than I got it.”
Exclusives
NBC’s Mea Culpa Can’t Undo The Damage Done
Margaret Sullivan: “Some corrections are almost pointless, such as the one that prompted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to light into NBC on Wednesday morning. Her complaint identifies one of the problems with corrections by news organizations: They rarely — and maybe never — can undo the damage caused by the original error.”
This Sunday, with 100 days to go until Election Day 2020, NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC and Telemundo will host an hour-long special, Decision 2020: 100 Days To Go, anchored by […]
A source tells TVNewser that NBC News is offering buyout options for staffers at NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. However, we hear these buyout offers are not directly related to the Covid-19 pandemic, nor are they linked to the recent arrival of Cesar Conde, the Telemundo-turned-NBC News Group chairman who assumed the new role in May.
In a memo to staff, NBC News Group Chairman Cesar Conde writes that the organization aspires to achieve “two concrete goals: that 50% of our News organization employees be women and 50% of our total workforce be people of color.”
NBC News correspondent Morgan Chesky took to social media over the weekend to publicly announce that he had contracted coronavirus. “It’s a truly unsettling feeling to wake up every day and wonder how your body will respond to a virus that we’re still learning about.”
Les Crystal, who was president of NBC News in the late 1970s before serving for more than two decades as the executive producer of PBS’s NewsHour, died on Wednesday. He was 85.
Thanks to a multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit filed Monday from a direct-to-consumer teeth-straightening company, Cesar Conde won’t be getting much of a honeymoon as the newly installed chief of the newly formed NBCUniversal News Group. “SmileDirectClub gave NBC every opportunity to retract this defamatory report and correct the record voluntarily,” said the action against NBCUniversal Media and reporter Vicky Nguyen that hit the docket in the Tennessee courts from the teledentistry organization over a critical February report from NBC News. “NBC chose not to so,” says the $2.85 billion-seeking suit
The apology didn’t satisfy President Donald Trump, who tweeted both Sunday and Monday that Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd should be fired.
Former NBC News staffer and conservative pundit Emily Miller said on Sunday that during her tenure at the network in the 1990s, “older men and men in power” propositioned her and dangled a promotion in exchange for sex.
Noah Oppenheim was primed to gain oversight of all the operations of NBC News and MSNBC. Instead he has a new boss with those very responsibilities — and more.
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.
Lester Holt is discussing hard news with a softer touch. The NBC Nightly News anchor is leading an experimental version of NBC’s flagship newscast aimed specifically at children and teens. The first edition of Nightly News Kids Edition streamed Wednesday evening on YouTube and the show, viewed as a test within NBC News, is likely to appear at least twice per week and potentially with greater frequency.
NBC News Special Report: Coronavirus Pandemic to air Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET, beginning March 31 for three consecutive weeks.
President Donald Trump went off on NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander after he pressed him on what he would say to Americans who are frightened by the coronavirus. “What do you say to Americans that are scared?” Alexander asked. “I’d say you are a terrible reporter,” Trump responded. “I think that’s a very nasty question, and I think that’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.” He then blasted NBC News and its parent company, Comcast, in general.
NBC News said on Friday that one of its employees, longtime audio technician Larry Edgeworth, has died after testing positive for the coronavirus. Larry Edgeworth, a sound technician for NBC News’s Rockefeller Plaza headquarters for the past 25 years, suffered from other health issues, his wife said, according to a memo sent by NBC News President Andrew Lack.
The Today anchor announced Tuesday night via Instagram that she would be broadcasting from home beginning Wednesday. Hoda Kotb will still be live from Studio 1A. “I’m staying home because I have a mild sore throat and runny nose,” Guthrie posted.
Six people at CBS News have tested positive for coronavirus. ABC News said Monday that a journalist who worked on the network’s coverage team of the outbreak in Seattle had tested positive for coronavirus. Meanwhile, at NBC, an employee who worked on the Today show’s third hour tested positive, forcing the show’s anchors Craig Melvin and Al Roker and others who came into contact with the person to be ordered to isolate in their homes as a result.
Coronavirus Pandemic special to air Thursday, March 19, at 10 pm ET across NBC, MSNBC, streaming service NBC News NOW and Telemundo Digital.
Today’s Al Roker and Craig Melvin are taking time off after a colleague on the third hour of the show contracted coronavirus. Anchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb announced the news on Monday morning — while practicing social distancing themselves and sitting apart. The stars said Roker and Melvin will be off the air for just a day as a precaution.
A Today show employee who works at the 30 Rockefeller Plaza building in New York City has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to a memo sent out to staff. Noah Oppenheim, the president of NBC News, emailed employees late Sunday to tell them that the unnamed staff member, who works on the weekday third-hour show, was receiving medical care for “mild symptoms” and wished them a speedy recovery. The show would go on, but everyone who’s had close contact will have to isolate themselves.
