Tegna CEO Dave Lougee Remains On Hot Seat

David Lougee and Adonis Hoffman

Tegna CEO Dave Lougee’s apology to former board nominee Adonis Hoffman over a racially charged incident has been accepted, but Hoffman is amping up criticism of the company’s response.

Deadline reports the back-and-forth is occurring against the backdrop of a proxy battle for Tegna. The company has rebuffed acquisition overtures despite the preferences of some of its privately held investors. One stakeholder — hedge fund Standard General — is calling for a shakeup of the board and had initially nominated Hoffman for a seat.

In a sequence of events which came fully to light earlier this month, Hoffman went to an industry luncheon in Washington in 2014 that was also attended by Lougee. The two spoke at some length during the event, Hoffman has recalled. At the hotel car valet afterward, Lougee handed Hoffman a ticket, mistaking the longtime fixture in Washington media and regulatory circles for a valet.

Lougee apologized on the day of the incident and on other occasions, including after Hoffman withdrew his nomination to the Tegna board of directors. He cited the valet affair as one of the reasons he would not be able to work constructively with Lougee. Hoffman had been on a slate of nominees put forward by Standard General, which owns 9% of Tegna.

In a letter sent to Lougee, Hoffman said he was not offended by the original incident and accepted the apology. “Coming from a working class family where my grandparents were domestic workers, I consider being a valet to be an honorable job,” he wrote. “What I took issue with was your failure to disclose, or accept any responsibility for, your action until it was made public last week. You even attempted to suppress the mentioning of the incident itself by offering to pay me at the time (I sincerely hope you were joking).”

Lougee took responsibility for his actions in a memo to employees earlier this month and said Tegna would conduct an independent review of the incident. Hoffman said in a letter to Tegna’s board that the probe is not truly independent since it involves several company officials. An outside law firm has conducted only one interview, with Lougee, he said. Hoffman said he himself has not been contacted, wondering, “How can you have a thorough review without talking to a key person involved?”