NBC Accused Of ‘Whitewashing’ After Tamron Hall’s Exit From The Network
It seems like NBC is always in the middle of some drama. On Wednesday, the National Association of Black Journalists accused the network of whitewashing after they announced Tamron Hall would be leaving.
As some of you may have heard, Hall was reportedly told just minutes before going on air Friday that she and Al Roker were being taken off the morning show for Megyn Kelly.
“She was a wreck in commercial breaks and couldn’t believe the company would tell her just before going live on MSNBC. It was especially surprising after receiving an email of praise from the co-executive producer just days before about how they were No. 1 in the ratings for seven weeks in a row.”
It completely destroyed her relationship with the network and it was announced she would be leaving earlier this week.
The company released a statement on Wednesday about the departure:
“Tamron Hall will be leaving NBC News and MSNBC when her contract expires this month. [January 31] was her last day as an anchor on both networks. Tamron is an exceptional journalist, we valued and enjoyed her work at Today and MSNBC and hoped that she would decide to stay. We are disappointed that she has chosen to leave, but we wish her all the best.”
As you can see, they’re trying to make it seem like they didn’t do anything wrong, but this is exactly what they wanted. They knew she wouldn’t stick around after being treated like that.
The National Association of Black Journalists wrote on their website that they believe NBC is whitewashing, which is a shame because they were a champion for diversity at one point.
“She broke ground as the first black female ‘Today Show’ cohost and was enjoying ratings success alongside Al Roker during the show’s third hour of programming. NBC has been a leader for diversity in broadcasting, but recent reports that Hall and Roker will be replaced by former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly are being seen by industry professionals as whitewashing.”
I think there are lots of things going on here, but at the end of the day, networks only care about ratings. They believe Kelly is going to bring them insane ratings.
We’ll see if their plan works out. I have a feeling it’s going to backfire on them.
