Thread: Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw faces sexual harassment allegations

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw faces sexual harassment allegations

by Rob McLean
April 26, 2018: 10:46 PM ET

Former NBC News correspondent Linda Vester has accused former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw, who retired in 2004, of harassment, according to reports by the Washington Post and Variety.

Variety reported that Vester said Brokaw "tried to force her to kiss him on two separate occasions." She also told the magazine that he groped her and showed up at her hotel room uninvited.

"I am speaking out now because NBC has failed to hire outside counsel to investigate a genuine, long-standing problem of sexual misconduct in the news division," Vester told the Post.

Brokaw denied the allegations in a statement provided to reporters by NBC.

"I met with Linda Vester on two occasions, both at her request, twenty three years ago because she wanted advice with respect to her career at NBC," Brokaw said in the statement. "The meetings were brief, cordial and appropriate and despite Linda's allegations I made no romantic overtures towards her at that time or any other."

Variety reported Vester left NBC in 1999 and anchored a show on Fox News until 2006.

The allegations come months after "Today'" host Matt Lauer was fired while facing claims of "inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace."

NBC News chairman Andy Lack said in a memo last December that the sexual misconduct allegations against Lauer exposed organizational failures.

"Many of you have asked what we are doing to learn as much as we can about the circumstances around Matt Lauer's appalling behavior, why this was able to happen, and why it wasn't reported sooner," Lack said in the memo. "This week we saw that when an employee comes forward to report misconduct, the system works. The complaint is quickly assessed and meaningful action is taken. But we also learned that we must do a much better job of making people feel empowered to take that crucial first step of reporting bad behavior."

The Post reported Thursday that NBC planned a "culture assessment," but "did not hire an outside firm to conduct the investigation." It is unclear in what stage that assessment is.

-- CNN's Brian Stelter contributed reporting.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/26/medi...ter/index.html

Tom Brokaw accused of inappropriate behavior in the 90s: reports

By John Bowden - 04/26/18 09:34 PM EDT

Legendary NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw is facing allegations of inappropriate behavior against two women in the 1990s, including a former NBC correspondent.

The women told The Washington Post in interviews that they experienced unwanted advances from Brokaw, including forcible attempts at kissing.

One woman who has come forward publicly, Linda Vester, is a former NBC News employee who says Brokaw, 30 years her senior, once invited himself over to her hotel room while in New York then proceeded to make unwanted advances.

“What do you want from me?” Vester said she asked him.

“An affair of more than passing affection,” she recalled him saying.

Brokaw went on to then attempt to kiss Vester, she alleges, which she refused, prompting him to leave. Vester says she relayed the encounter to a friend at the time, both before and after it occurred, who corroborated Vester's account to the Post.

A second encounter with Brokaw happened a year later, she told the newspaper, but both times she feared reporting the incidents would end her career at NBC.

In an interview with Variety, Vester describes an initial encounter with Brokaw, which she says happened in full view of other NBC employees.

"We were in the Denver bureau, and there was a conference room. I’m standing there, and Tom Brokaw enters through the door and grabs me from behind and proceeds to tickle me up and down my waist," Vester said.

"I jumped a foot and I looked at a guy who was the senior editor of 'Nightly,' and his jaw was hanging open. Nobody acted like anything wrong was happening, but I was humiliated."

Vester described the encounter as "out of the blue," as she was working for a different NBC show at the time and had no prior relationship with Brokaw.

Her attorney, Ari Wilkenfeld, also represents the initial accuser who came forward about fellow NBC anchor Matt Lauer with claims of sexual harassment.

Wilkenfield told the Post that Vester is not seeking legal remedy against Brokaw, and is telling her story at "her own expense."

“Linda has shown incredible courage and conviction coming forward to share the details of her experiences working at NBC,” Wilkenfield told the newspaper. “She does so at her own expense and peril. She wants nothing for herself.”

Lauer, who was fired from the network in November, was accused by multiple women of inappropriate sexual conduct. Lauer's career was one of many to be brought down by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, which have sought to expose sexual misconduct by powerful figures in media and other industries.

Another woman who chose to remain anonymous told the Post that Brokaw grabbed her hands and held them against his chest when she was a production assistant at NBC News.

“He put my hands under his jacket and against his chest and pulled me in so close and asked me, ‘How is your job search going?’  ” she said. Brokaw later invited her to his office, which she refused, she said. The woman says she left the network shortly after the incident.

Brokaw denied Vester's accusations and did not address the anonymous claim against him in a statement to the Post.

"I met with Linda Vester on two occasions, both at her request, 23 years ago, because she wanted advice with respect to her career at NBC,” he said in a statement issued by NBC.

“The meetings were brief, cordial and appropriate, and despite Linda’s allegations, I made no romantic overtures towards her, at that time or any other.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/38...hem-in-the-90s

Brokaw went on to then attempt to kiss Vester, she alleges, which she refused, prompting him to leave. Vester says she relayed the encounter to a friend at the time, both before and after it occurred, who corroborated Vester's account to the Post.

How do you relay an encounter to a friend "before" it occurred??!!

Women need to learn to tell anyone, in a bar, in a college, in a work place, in the supermarket, at an event .... who makes a romantic pass at you and you're not interested, "no thank you." If someone calls your room in a hotel to tell you they're coming over, say "no, I'm not interested, so don't do that." If they come over and knock on the door, don't answer it. If they start banging and causing a commotion, call hotel security.

Corporations, government and other types of employers need to provide women some language and tools to work with, lines that they practice and are ready to use to nip these things in the bud. Women make unwanted passes at men in the work place just as often as men make them to women. This is not a one sided show. If you believe in equal rights and equal opportunity, it also means equal responsibility. Do women want their reputations ruined for their unwanted flirtations or romantic overtures towards men? No, I didn't think so.

If employees can't learn how to handle these situations without harming each other and embarrassing their employers, one day you will all be replaced with robots.