Leading off Thursday’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, the eponymous FNC host and The Hill’s Joe Concha provided a proverbial beatdown to NBC News for “lying” in their cover-up and reluctance to cover the Harvey Weinstein allegations of sexual misconduct.
The focus has largely (and appropriately) remained on the victims, but Carlson noted that it’s worth discussing how NBC News joined with “[m]any powerful people” in ducking “what Harvey Weinstein was doing.”
As NewsBusters has noted this week, numerous reports revealed that NBC News contributor Ronan Farrow had “conclusively exposed more than a dozen allegations against Weinstein by women who say he sexually harassed, groped, even raped them, but the network killed that investigation.”
Before bringing on Concha, Carlson put it bluntly when he noted that “NBC is lying” that, in the words of news division chief Noah Oppenheim, NBC “encouraged Farrow to report the story” when accounts from CNN, Huffington Post, and even Farrow himself refute that.
Here’s more from Carlson:
Oppenheim says, quote, “NBC gave him resources to report that story over many, many months.” Maybe except for a camera crew when Farrow tried to interview an alleged rape victim, Oppenheimer says, Farrow story is quote, “was not the story that we were looking at, we made our judgment.” Yet another lie as Farrow told Rachel Maddow two nights ago, he’d finished the bulk of his reporting on Weinstein when he went to The New Yorker. That is why the magazine accepted his piece in the first place.
Carlson also praised MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow for praising Farrow on these claims on Tuesday:
We bet money that her employer didn’t want Rachel Maddow to do that segment, but she did it anyway. Good for her. So, why did a purported news organization kill a blockbuster news story? Well, presumably we will find out at some point. This is a scandal and the truth has a way of emerging from those in the end.
Needless to say, Concha was locked and loaded, blasting Oppenheim for “refusing to answer questions” and the baffling notion that, as a media company, they would allow such a huge story to knowingly walk out the door to “find some other publication” (which was The New Yorker).
Concha noted how the October 5 NBC Nightly News censored the story (from their audience of “eight million people”) when it broke hours after The New York Times published their first account.
Concha continued:
The entertainment side of NBC, you have Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon, didn’t do any jokes on Harvey Weinstein for five nights. Then you have Saturday Night Live, as Trace mentioned, there were jokes on Weinstein, and then suddenly they didn’t appear on air. So, you either believe that those four entities decided that it wasn’t a story or an order, the code red sort to speak came down from somewhere and said, were not going to touch this until they’re absolutely had to because it was blown wide open. That was point number one. Two, we talked about this many months ago. The Access Hollywood tape. NBC property, Access Hollywood. And it just happened that this tape walked out the door, that they knew about for months, maybe longer, by the way, the contents of it, and ended up in a Washington Post reporter’s mailbox two nights before the second presidential debate.
The Hill’s media reporter then noted the hysterical irony that NBC’s latest scandal came the same week that they published an anonymous source-laden story about President Trump supposedly calling for an increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal.
Since those anonymous sources were enough for NBC, Concha wondered why women on-the-record wasn’t satisfactory to blow the whistle on the monstrous liberal donor and filmmaker:
What was that story based on? Unnamed sources. We don’t know where those sources came from. It could variously be somebody’s fathers, brothers, nephews, cousins, former roommate, we don’t know. That was good enough to get the air. But Ronan Farrow, who had tapes, who had videotapes with actual accusers, that’s not good enough for us. We don’t want to get in your way. We don’t want to get in your way? Go take it to The New Yorker. So, unpack all of that and then ask yourself, who do you believe?
“It’s remarkable. I don’t think in my life I have ever taken the side of a politician over a news organization. It pains me to do it. But I don’t think they’re legitimate. I think they’re corrupt. I think they’re liars. I think they’re debasing their own currency,” Carlson responded.
Here’s the relevant transcript from FNC’s Tucker Carlson Tonight on October 12:
FNC’s Tucker Carlson Tonight
October 12, 2017
8:00 p.m. Eastern
TUCKER CARLSON: The downfall of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein essentially complete tonight. The allegations are far too numerous to ignore. He has been fired from his own company and now he is apparently in some kind of rehab facility talking about himself while the NYPD investigates criminal charges against him. Whatever happens next, you pretty much know what Harvey Weinstein’s Wikipedia entry is going to say 20 years from now. But the larger Weinstein saga is just beginning. Many powerful people knew what Harvey Weinstein was doing, and not only ignored his crimes but actively took his side against his many victims. It’s a long list, but at the very top of that list is NBC News. NBC had the story months ago. Their former anchor Ronan Farrow, conclusively exposed more than a dozen allegations against Weinstein by women who say he sexually harassed, groped, even raped them, but the network killed that investigation. Now NBC News President Noah Oppenheim says the company had good reason for doing that, but did the company have good reason?
(....)
CARLSON: So, let’s be clear. NBC is lying. Yesterday, news division head Noah Oppenheim claimed NBC, quote, “encouraged Farrow to report the story.” The opposite is true. They pressured him to drop it. Oppenheim says, quote, “NBC gave him resources to report that story over many, many months.” Maybe except for a camera crew when Farrow tried to interview an alleged rape victim, Oppenheimer says, Farrow story is quote, “was not the story that we were looking at, we made our judgment.” Yet another lie as Farrow told Rachel Maddow two nights ago, he’d finished the bulk of his reporting on Weinstein when he went to The New Yorker. That is why the magazine accepted his piece in the first place.
(....)
CARLSON: We bet money that her employer didn’t want Rachel Maddow to do that segment, but she did it anyway. Good for her. So, why did a purported news organization kill a blockbuster news story? Well, presumably we will find out at some point. This is a scandal and the truth has a way of emerging from those in the end. One possible explanation is Noah Oppenheim. In the addition to being the head of NBC News, Oppenheim is a Hollywood screenwriter with deep ties to the movie business and the Democratic Party establishment. Could it be that Oppenheim had a business relationship with Harvey Weinstein or Weinstein’s company? It is not a far-fetched possibility at all, and yet as of earlier today, Oppenheim and NBC when asked directly refused to say. Oppenheim ought to resign immediately, and if he doesn’t, he ought to be fired immediately by NBC’s parent company, Comcast. News executives are not allowed to tell lies. They are not allowed to participate in cover ups. They ought to answer straightforward questions straightforwardly. When they don’t, you know they are corrupt, and that is exactly what NBC News is. For more on the broader media efforts to protect Harvey Weinstein the middle of all this, we are joined by Joe Concha who covers that industry for The Hill newspaper. Joe, thanks for coming on tonight.
JOE CONCHA: Sure.
CARLSON: So the red flag for me — and these are very, complicated stories and we don’t know all the answers. But we do know that NBC News, Noah Oppenheim and Noah Oppenheim’s agent are refusing to answer very simple question which is, did Noah Oppenheim as president of NBC News has any business relationship at all with Harvey Weinstein or his company. And they won’t answer that question. What is the possible range of explanations for refusing to answer a simple question like that?
CONCHA: That is what bothers me about this, Tucker, that the head of a news organization is refusing to answer questions. He should go to, not the NBC News, obviously, don’t keep it in-house, but find some other publication, somebody you don’t compete with. Sit down and answer questions. It’s exactly what you would ask a journalist with NBC News to do and you can break this down 100 different ways. Two things that really stick out at me, and Trace brought up in his piece. Seven-and-a-half hours after the story broke on Thursday, the NBC Nightly News, which is watched by eight million people, did not cover it. That’s the news side. The entertainment side of NBC, you have Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon, didn’t do any jokes on Harvey Weinstein for five nights. Then you have Saturday Night Live, as Trace mentioned, there were jokes on Weinstein, and then suddenly they didn’t appear on air. So, you either believe that those four entities decided that it wasn’t a story or an order, the code red sort to speak came down from somewhere and said, were not going to touch this until they’re absolutely had to because it was blown wide open. That was point number one. Two, we talked about this many months ago. The Access Hollywood tape. NBC property, Access Hollywood.
CARLSON: Right.
CONCHA: And it just happened that this tape walked out the door, that they knew about for months, maybe longer, by the way, the contents of it, and ended up in a Washington Post reporter’s mailbox two nights before the second presidential debate. By all intents and purposes, that should have ended the election except the candidate was Trump and he was foolproof to this sort of stuff, and obviously, he won. So, you look at those two simple explanations, right? Or those scenarios. Then compare it, Tucker, to what we saw this week from NBC News and particularly yesterday where they had a bombshell report and exclusive, that said the President wanted to include — or increase, excuse me, our nuclear arsenal temple. And they had that in quotes, right? And then President Trump disputes that, but more importantly Secretary Mattis who is one of the most incredible people in Washington or least expected says, it is absolutely false. What was that story based on? Unnamed sources. We don’t know where those sources came from. It could variously be somebody’s fathers, brothers, nephews, cousins, former roommate, we don’t know. That was good enough to get the air. But Ronan Farrow, who had tapes, who had videotapes with actual accusers, that’s not good enough for us. We don’t want to get in your way. We don’t want to get in your way? Go take it to The New Yorker. So, unpack all of that and then ask yourself, who do you believe?
CARLSON: It’s remarkable. I don’t think in my life I have ever taken the side of a politician over a news organization. It pains me to do it. But I don’t think they’re legitimate. I think they’re corrupt. I think they’re liars. I think they’re debasing their own currency.
(....)
CONCHA:. It is almost now — it is a week old and it’s going to keep going and going because more journalists like The Huffington Post, like The Daily Beast, like even CNN is going to dig into this and more journalists are going to be exposed for protecting Weinstein and then news organizations.
CARLSON: That is right.
CONCHA: It’s going to just — I think NBC was betting on, well, it’s the era of Trump and this thing is going to blow over because the new cycle move so fast and it is not going away. People are not going to let this go. And some people at some very high places, I have a feeling, are going to be exposed to this far more than Harvey Weinstein.
CARLSON: Yes. I mean, Weinstein himself is evidently a pig. The revealing part was watching the entire ruling class mobilized behind him to defend him and the indefensible. Really interesting moment.
