“NBC News president Deborah Turness had to apologize after infuriating top execs and talent by announcing the network news organization had been asleep for 15 years:”
Turness, who came to the job from Britain’s ITV News one year ago, dropped the tactless clanger in a New York Times interview on Sunday, saying, “NBC News hadn’t kept up with the times in all sorts of ways, for maybe 15 years . . . I think the organization had gone to sleep.”
Sources tell us Tom Brokaw, managing editor and anchor of NBC’s “Nightly News” from 1982 until 2004, Turness’ predecessor Steve Capus (NBC News president from 2005 to 2013 and now executive producer of “CBS Evening News”) and CNN chief Jeff Zucker “are apoplectic” over Turness’ remark.
One network insider fumed, “Turness is making enemies. Her ‘asleep’ comment is incredibly disrespectful to many of NBC’s top journalists, especially Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams, and her predecessors Steve Capus, Andy Lack, Neal Shapiro and Jeff Zucker.”
Damn straight — just look at the brilliant product that NBC puts on on a regular basis — and how tightly edited is. I mean, we’re talking down to the sentence here:
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Its investigative resources always on the alert to uncover the dirt voters need to know about political poseurs on the eve of a critical election:
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And then there’s the professionalism of its hosts, growing by leaps and bounds every day:
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How does Furness improve upon that? This is the finest product NBC has put out since the glory days of Fred Silverman in the late 1970s:
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Product so good, its ratings should be investigated!
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