The male head writer of Megyn Kelly Today was fired after complaining about the show’s reported toxic environment of bullying and harassment, reports the Daily Mail.
Kevin Bleyer, an Emmy winner with a resume that includes the Daily Show and a stint writing speeches for former President Obama, served as the head writer of Megyn Kelly’s hour of the Today Show until he reportedly complained directly to NBC News president Noah Oppenheim about the alleged abusive nature of the show’s top producers, Jackie Levin and Christine Cataldi.
Some of the alleged abuse is directed at female staffers.
After his termination Monday, Bleyer sent an email to his former colleagues that laid out his complaints:
Jackie Levin persists in creating a toxic and demeaning environment, and Christine Cataldi enables and reinforces it. Amendments to their behavior since we last spoke have been marginal, patently cosmetic, and superficially employed clearly in order to tell themselves – and perhaps you – they are doing what have been told to do to ‘make nice.’ The antagonism remains.
Just last week, when I provided a constructive suggestion (to correct a mistake Jackie had made, but didn’t want to admit), she called me a ‘fucking whiner.’…
It is a special absurdity — and what some find a hard-to-swallow injustice — that as a team we’ve been lauded for covering harassment stories daily on air, while the staff producing those stories feels so embattled and bullied themselves.
…
What’s more, it should also be known that Christine routinely speaks of her assistant Katrina as ‘an idiot.’ Katrina is not an idiot.
The Daily Mail talked to an NBC insider who confirmed the abuse and also pointed out the irony of it occurring on a show that regularly addresses inappropriate workplace behavior:
The working environment on Megyn Kelly Today is completely toxic. It is hypocritical that a show that has positioned itself as a safe place for those who are victims, has staff that feel like they are being harassed and abused.
‘Megyn harps on about people having a voice and shining a light in dark places, so that’s what Kevin did. Here’s the problem, Megyn’s show doesn’t practice what she preaches – you do that on her show, you get fired! It’s a joke.’
As of this writing, Megyn Kelly has not addressed the allegations or the firing.
NBC is already dealing with multiple allegations of sexual misconduct involving staffers who are still employed (Chris Matthews, Mike Tirico) and has had to fire or suspend nearly a half-dozen others. On top of that, two NBC staffers — Joy Reid and Alec Baldwin — have both engaged in the worst kind of homophobia. Add to that now these claims of toxic bullying.
Nevertheless, NBC still refuses to hire an outside firm to come in to investigate its workplace behavior. The far-left network is committed to investigating itself.
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