In a moment of near-constant media shakeups, the firing of NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell on Monday is still a stunner. Shell, one of the most powerful men in media, was ousted after CNBC host Hadley Gamble showed company investigators a series of messages purporting to show harassment. Shell has admitted to having an “inappropriate relationship with a woman in the company.”
As I wrote in my New York Times bestselling book, Breaking the News, “Jeff Shell is one of the most powerful people at NBCUniversal, and his family is passionately dedicated to the Democrat political establishment, yet we’re expected to believe they will preside over responsible news coverage. This isn’t mere bias; this is potential corruption.”
Unlike Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon, Shell wasn’t an on-camera firebrand. Instead, he oversaw the $100 billion NBCUniversal multimedia empire, one of the pillars of the American news and entertainment establishment. Shell was also a mainstay in modern big-money Democratic politics. Shell and his wife were major bundlers for President Obama, who rewarded him by appointing Shell chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Asia. His sister, Dana Shell Smith, was appointed ambassador to Qatar by Obama; she served into the Trump administration, only leaving after she had trashed the Trump government while she was overseas.
But Shell’s downfall isn’t just another embarrassment for the Democrat media elite. It could mark a milestone in an era that will surely go down as one of the handsy-est in history.
Shell took the helm at NBCUniversal in 2019, a time when NBC’s news division was mired in controversy and the entire company was looking to pivot into streaming with the launch of Peacock, its new streaming service. Instead, it seems, Shell is being accused of partaking in the same culture that had publicly plagued the company for years.
The decision to fire someone as powerful as Shell is surprising turn of events for a company whose leadership, in recent years, allegedly swooped in to smother stories about sexual harassment committed by Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer.
A couple years earlier, NBC News President Noah Oppenheim was accused of trying to block reporting by Ronan Farrow, then an NBC reporter, about Harvey Weinstein’s sexual transgressions. Oppenheim later called Farrow’s book, in which he details NBC’s alleged attempts to cover for Weinstein and Lauer, a “smear.” At the time, Oppenheim worked under MSNBC and NBC News Chairman Andy Lack, whose other greatest hits include protecting noted liars Brian Williams and Joy Reid. Lack was ousted as chairman in 2020 as part of a “reorganization.” Oppenheim stuck around until January of this year.
I wrote in Breaking the News that “[t]here seemed to be a bad fact-pattern developing for Oppenheim and Andy Lack: [former NBC producer Rich] McHugh’s claim fit the narrative that NBC turned a blind eye toward predatory men.” The latest revelations about Shell surely would have led to a news cycle reminiscent of an era at NBCU that they certainly would like to forget.
Shell’s departure is major personnel news in what is already a monster week of media shake-ups. It is simultaneously an ignominy for the corporate media and a significant loss for the Democrat establishment. Just don’t expect it to temper the smugness of MSNBC talking heads as they savor the fates of rivals Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon.
I look forward to seeing how and with whom NBC replaces Shell, but I am deeply skeptical that things will improve.
Alex Marlow is the Editor-in-Chief of Breitbart News, the host of Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM’s Patriot Channel 125, and the author of the bestselling book, Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption. You can follow Alex on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @AlexMarlow.
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