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Firing Of Matt Lauer Opens Can Of Worms On Twitter For Ann Curry Ousting

By Roz Zurko
Published on: 04:21 PST, Nov 29, 2017

Matt Lauer has joined the ranks of the famous and powerful men who have recently been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace. Savannah Guthrie was tasked with bringing the news of Lauer’s firing to the masses Wednesday morning. She sadly conveyed that Matt Lauer, the man who for two decades graced the TV sets in homes across the nation, had been fired.

Guthrie’s announcement came at the top of the same show where Lauer was a fixture for two decades, The Today Show. According to CNN News, an employee filed a complaint accusing Lauer of “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace,” and Lauer’s firing was the result of this accusation.

It didn’t take long for Twitter users to open up the debate on the firing of Ann Curry several years ago, and now, with Lauer ousted from the show, people are asking once again why Lauer wasn’t the one ousted during that debacle. According to The Daily Mail, in an article from 2012, “Curry has taken the blame from many at NBC for the Today show’s rating decline. The program lost the top spot among network morning shows this spring, a position it had held, unbroken, since 1995.” This was the official reason for letting her go as far as the network was concerned back then.

This wasn’t the full story, according to the New York Magazine, in an article that covered what went on behind the scenes when it came to the firing of Ann Curry in an article from 2013. They report, “From where Curry was sitting, a savage tone behind the scenes and a complicit Matt Lauer were her undoing.”

The person who accused Matt Lauer is not named, and the details of what happened have not been made public. It is not known if this is a recent incident that this accusation is referring to or if it is something that allegedly happened years ago. It didn’t take long for people to bring up the firing of Ann Curry and suggesting that NBC let the wrong anchor go at the time. Some even pictured Ann Curry smiling over the news wherever she is today. Others thought it was a revenge dished up by fate for the treatment of Curry several years back.

Some of the Ann Curry fans who took to Twitter today convey they stopped watching the Today Show once Curry was let go. She had been with the Today Show only for about a year when the decision to let her go was announced. NBC didn’t expect her to show back up for work after the announcement was made. They did say she would be let go in a month down the line, but the head honchos thought she’d be furious and not come back the following day. According to the Daily Mail’s account from back then, she showed up as if nothing happened. The “Today Show producers contacted Hoda Kotb, who co-hosts the fourth hour of the program, and told her to be ready to go on the air at 7 am.” But Curry surprised them all with her professionalism.

Curry received words of praise from folks far and wide when she showed up for the show without missing a beat. One tweet in particular summed up the feeling of that day when CNN interviewer Piers Morgan tweeted his opinion.

‘To know just how professional @AnnCurry is, she’s been faultless co-hosting @todayshow this morning. Despite all the pressure. #ClassAct.”

Years later, the ousting of Ann Curry takes on a new life on Twitter. People didn’t forget, and today they are reminding NBC that they may have made a mistake with letting Ann Curry go. Some of the Twitter comments are seen below.

The Twitter comments continued.

“Completely agree. @AnnCurry is the best and she was not treated honorably by @nbc. I stopped watching when they fired her and kept smarmy Lauer.”

“YES! I loved @AnnCurry!! Perhaps the pendulum has now officially swung in the direction of WOMEN being in charge. Let’s try that for the rest of our time on earth. The sexual abuse/rape culture must end.”

“I thought of Ann too and the lousy way they treated her.”

Under “Ann Curry Firing” on Twitter, people had a lot to say:

According to Fox News, NBC Chairman Andy Lack released a statement to the NBC News staff regarding Lauer being fired. In that statement, he mentioned the one complaint of inappropriate sexual behavior, which is the only one they have received regarding Matt in his decades on the show. But he also said, “We were also presented with a reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”

As you can hear in Guthrie’s voice on air this morning, she didn’t have much time to process what she was reporting and was somewhat shocked. According to CNN, she was told only moments before going on the air that Lauer was gone, and then, Guthrie read the following statement for NBC viewers.

“This is a sad morning at Today and NBC News. As I’m sure you can understand, we are devastated. I’m heartbroken for Matt. He is my dear, dear colleague.”

Hoda Kotb, who was on the set with Guthrie said how she loved Matt as a friend and colleague after knowing him for years.

“It’s hard to reconcile the man who walks in every day with the person who was identified in the complaint.”

It doesn’t appear that many social media users share the NBC co-anchors thoughts about Lauer’s firing. Folks on Twitter not only didn’t appear all that surprised, and numerous comments were condemning Lauer, rather than defending him.

[Featured Image by Richard Drew/AP Images]

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