Staffers at NBC’s digital news division said Wednesday they plan to unionize so they can get better job protections — including the ability to publicly criticize the network’s brass without fear of retaliation.
The NYPost reports the surprise memo from the NewsGuild of New York, which represents about 150 NBC digital employees, said the decision to form a union was spurred partly by Ronan Farrow’s bombshell book “Catch and Kill.”
Farrow’s book alleges that NBC News president Noah Oppenheim and chairman Andy Lack spiked his explosive story about Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct in 2017 partly because Weinstein had threatened to leak information about sexual misconduct allegations against “Today” show host Matt Lauer.
The book “highlighted serious questions as to how NBC News has handled incidents of sexual misconduct in the workplace as well as the opaque processes and procedures for reporting on and exposing powerful predators,” the union said.
“NBC News repeatedly refused calls for an independent review on both counts despite numerous such requests from staff,” according to the memo. “This lack of transparency and NBC News’ troubling trend of passing on stories which investigate the powerful ultimately harm our credibility as journalists.”
The employees said they could only address these issues, as well as the “gender and race wage gap” at the company, through the protection of a union.
“It’s been painful for a lot of people to see headlines and feel like they don’t have the space to talk about what’s going on in their own workplace,” said Nigel Chiwaya, a data journalist who is involved in organizing the union.
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