Matt Lauer is not done talking about the media firestorm that surrounded NBC’s Today Show when Ann Curry left. Although it’s been over a year since it happened, the news anchor decided to slam the media in a new interview, calling reporters out for being lazy and spreading rumors.
“The way the media treated what happened with Ann Curry was a disappointing learning experience,” he said in a new interview with Esquire. “I was disappointed by the laziness of the media, the willingness to read a rumor, repeat that rumor, and treat it as a fact.”
At the time, Lauer became the villain as reports suggested that he was behind Curry’s departure. Everything that went on during Today broadcasts was analyzed, even when Al Roker suggested that someone threw somebody under the bus. There were reports that Lauer was close to leaving for ABC’s Good Morning America and that Anderson Cooper would replace him. None of this materialized and Lauer waited until March to finally speak out, calling the ordeal a “hard time for everybody.”
In his Esquire interview, Lauer continued, explaining his initial silence. “And yet, what were my options?” he said. “Does anyone want to see a person who’s making the money that the newspapers say I’m making complaining, ‘Woe is me, my life is terrible, and people are being unfair’? No one would’ve had any patience for that. I wouldn’t have any patience for that. So you just shut up and go about doing your job and hope that people who know you well — your friends and your family — know what’s true.”
Curry is currently still with NBC News as a special foreign correspondent, but is rarely seen on the Today Show. Lauer currently appears on the show’s first two hours.
image: NBC