ALL THE PROBLEMS AT NBC NEWS AREN’T JUST COINCIDENCE. THEY’RE SYMPTOMS.

When NBC News decided last year that Ronan Farrow’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein wasn’t solid enough to air, or even to keep pursuing, that could have been a too-timid-but-well-intentioned editorial decision. (NBC is quick to note that he was a freelancer and was not working for the network exclusively at the time.)

But it turned out to be a blunder for the ages — akin to Decca Records rejecting the Beatles — considering that Farrow went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on Harvey Weinstein begun at NBC but brought to fruition at the New Yorker. And it reminded some observers of NBC’s failure to deliver its own scoop in 2016 when The Washington Post broke the news that Donald Trump could be heard bragging about sexual assault on an NBC “Access Hollywood” recording.

I’m not sure if that’s at all an apt comparison to Decca passing on the Beatles. Dick Rowe, the executive who rejected them made up for his disaster by signing the Rolling Stones, who quickly became nearly as big of a cash cow for Decca as the Beatles were to EMI. I don’t see any signs of NBC’s news division regaining the trust of half of the country anytime soon.