As it promised, NBC did not apologize on the air Wednesday for its decision not to observe a moment of silence during the “Today” show on Sept. 11.
But Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, did send out a message to the managers of NBC’s affiliated stations Wednesday, which acknowledged that they had been hit with a storm of criticism from their viewers over the decision – and apologized for putting the stations through that.
The incident received wide coverage Tuesday, mainly because “Today” was the only one of the three network morning shows not to participate in the moment of silence in memory of those who died on 9/11, but also because “Today” happened to be in the midst of a segment that seemed to invite ridicule: an interview with Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the tabloid-darling Kardashian clan, who was discussing her breast augmentation.
Mr. Capus sent his memo to NBC Affiliate Corporation Group executives, and began by citing the extensive coverage “Today” provided Wednesday to the attacks on the American embassies in Libya and Egypt. Then he added: “Yesterday, we made an editorial call resulting in the Sept, 11 moment of silence not being seen. While we dedicated a substantial amount of airtime to anniversary events, we still touched a nerve with many of your viewers … and for that we apologize.”
NBC’s position on Tuesday had been that “Today” did not routinely observe the 9/11 moment of silence, and in fact had included it only once — on the 10-year anniversary last year — since 2006.
One NBC executive, who did not want to be identified because the network was seeking to move past the incident, said that the memo to the affiliate executives did not represent a contradiction in NBC’s position on not apologizing for the decision.
It was, rather, an effort to acknowledge that the stations had been subjected to criticism over a decision made by the network, the executive said, and that was what warranted the apology.