The job of the morning-show anchor involves connecting with the viewer. Now millions of people have been suddenly told that this fake relationship is over.<\/b>
\nFor the second week in a row, viewers of a network morning show woke up to a disturbing surprise: Two female hosts reporting, and working publicly through the emotion of, the ouster of their male colleague over allegations of sexual misconduct.
On Wednesday morning, it was Savannah Guthrie, joined by Hoda Kotb on the \u201cToday\u201d show, her voice shaking as she announced, \u201cBreaking news overnight: Matt Lauer has been terminated from NBC News.\u201d Last week, it was Gayle King and Norah O\u2019Donnell on \u201cCBS This Morning,\u201d where Charlie Rose was fired .
How do we process the news, and the shattering of the morning shows? James Poniewozik and Margaret Lyons, two television critics for The Times, discuss.
JAMES PONIEWOZIK As in every case like this, the first, second and thousandth concern should be for the victims. The main lesson is straightforward: You shouldn\u2019t harass or assault your co-workers, whatever your job, and you should be punished if you do.
But morning-show host is also a public job. By design, it involves a kind of connection with the home viewer, even if an artificial one. You bring people into your home for years, you feel as if you know them, though of course you don\u2019t. Here, millions of people were suddenly told \u2014 twice \u2014 that this electronic, faux relationship was over. I can\u2019t recall anything quite like this.
MARGARET LYONS I can\u2019t either.
Morning TV lives and dies by its perceived intimacy. Of course, I don\u2019t know Matt Lauer\u2026 but I don\u2019t not know him either. He\u2019s a celebrity \u2014 and much of celebrity culture is that one-way bond.
I wonder if this will shift one aspect of the conversation that sometimes exists around abuse and assault. Even when professing solidarity with survivors, many people still balk, still recoil and insist, \u201cI don\u2019t know anyone who would ever do that or has ever done that.\u201d You do now, kind of.
PONIEWOZIK This is one thing I think is so valuable about a reaction like Savannah Guthrie\u2019s. She says Mr. Lauer is her \u201cdear, dear friend\u201d but that this doesn\u2019t excuse him. Likewise, Ms. King acknowledged being broken up, but repeated that Mr. Rose \u201cdoes not get a pass.\u201d
The reckoning is necessary, they\u2019re saying, but that doesn\u2019t make it easy. Maybe that gives the audience permission to process facts in their own lives that are not easy to handle. As Ms. Guthrie put it, \u201cHow do you reconcile your love for someone with the revelation that they have behaved badly?\u201d
You might have been a fan of Mr. Lauer and Mr. Rose, or not. You may be surprised, or not. But as more and more of these bills come due \u2014 as I type, I just saw the news that Garrison Keillor says he was fired over accusations of inappropriate behavior \u2014 it\u2019s not going to happen to only people you never liked.
LYONS I guess the hopeful part of me (a measly sliver at best) wonders if \u201cToday\u201d or \u201cCBS This Morning\u201d might grapple with this as a process, like when Katie Couric taught us about cancer screenings. \u201cWelcome back to the third hour of \u2018Today.\u2019 Later, we\u2019ll talk about restorative justice. But first, here\u2019s how the patriarchy is bad for everyone \u2026\u201d
Clearing house is an important step, but it\u2019s not the only step. Matt Lauer getting fired is new, but suggestions that \u201cToday\u201d is a sexist workplace \u2026 those are not new. And I\u2019m curious how the show will address that, if at all.
PONIEWOZIK The flip side of the \u201cmorning shows are like a family\u201d dynamic is that it has had some weird gender assumptions built in. The preconception, for instance, that you need a man and a woman hosting \u2014 like a mom and dad \u2014 and that, often, the man is cast as the one who lends gravitas and authority. (Those being relative terms in a genre that has room for \u201cWhere in the World Is Matt Lauer?\u201d)
A side effect of these scandals has been that suddenly two of the big network morning shows were hosted by women. (The last example I recall was when Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts co-hosted \u201cGood Morning America\u201d \u2014 because Charles Gibson was given \u201cWorld News Tonight\u201d over Ms. Sawyer.) The designated male was gone \u2014 but the cameras stayed on! The news got told! The world kept spinning!
LYONS Yeah, I think the answer to \u201cwhat would happen if two women hosted?\u201d is just, \u201cThen two women would be hosting.\u201d I could live just fine in that world!
PONIEWOZIK There\u2019s a pattern in these harassment scandals lately where after the revelation comes the forensic phase: People comb through the internet for old video-clip evidence that says, look, we should have seen the guy was bad news all along.
I saw plenty of examples right after Mr. Lauer was fired: a letch-y interview with Anne Hathaway; a tasteless 2012 \u201cToday\u201d sketch with Mr. Lauer as a victim of \u201csexual harassment\u201d; the whole ugly, gender-charged ejection of Ann Curry. There was the atrocious \u201ccommander-in-chief forum\u201d in the 2016 campaign, where, as I wrote at the time, Mr. Lauer interrupted Hillary Clinton constantly while pitching softballs to Donald J. Trump.
Condescending to women is bad in and of itself. And sexual harassment is bad in and of itself. And maybe they\u2019re correlated \u2014 I\u2019m not a psychologist, I just watch \u201cMindhunter.\u201d But I\u2019m skeptical that creeps will always leave an obvious trail of bread crumbs, especially people who are literally paid to give a performance, even if it\u2019s for the news division.
LYONS Agreed. There is not a one-to-one correlation between \u201cis sexist in public\u201d and \u201cassaults people in private.\u201d Abusers get good at hiding their most abusive selves from the rest of the world. Why else would threats \u2014 \u201cwho would believe you?\u201d \u2014 take such hold?
What I hope, though, is that more people start recognizing that behavior doesn\u2019t have to rise to some insane level of horror to be considered unacceptable. You cannot imagine how tired I am of hearing that someone \u201cwas just joking around,\u201d or that \u201cI should lighten up,\u201d or that \u201ccome on, I know he\u2019s not a bad guy.\u201d I am very tired of hearing that. Low-key degradation is also a bad way to be.
To recap, keep your hands to yourself; keep your genitals covered in any work environment; and embrace the radical notion that women are people. And\u2026 I don\u2019t know, maybe hire Ann Curry back?<\/p>\n

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