NBC chairman Andy Lack has dismissed claims that he was complicit in the sexual harassment allegations against former anchor Matt Lauer and film producer Harvey Weinstein, Fox News reports.
According to reporting by author Ronan Farrow, Lack, along with NBC’s president Noah Oppenheim, was “directly implicated in the stonewalling of” Farrow’s reporting on the original Harvey Weinstein scandal that sparked the #MeToo movement. Farrow also claims to have found evidence that Weinstein “was trying to leverage Lauer’s own scandal over the network.”
As a result, there have been increased calls for an outside investigation into the misconduct at NBC, including from numerous presidential candidates. At a recent Democratic debate hosted by MSNBC, Lack allegedly dodged questions from a Washington Post reporter on the matter, saying “I don’t have anything to say about it, I don’t know much about it.”
An anonymous insider at NBC News, speaking to Fox, expressed skepticism that any investigation would take place. He called Lack “the Rasputin of network news,” and added that when it comes to Lack’s relationships with NBC Universal’s CEO Steve Burke and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, he has them “so wrapped around his finger that God Himself couldn’t force an independent investigation, which Andy knows would certainly result in his ouster.”