The hosts of The View kicked off Wednesday morning’s broadcast by tearing into Matt Lauer, who re-emerged this week to bash Ronan Farrow’s reporting on the rape allegations against the disgraced former Today show host.
Following New York Times columnist Ben Smith’s recent article scrutinizing Farrow’s work, Mediaite published a nearly 5,000-word column from Lauer denying accusations of sexual misconduct and accusing Farrow of sloppy reporting. Farrow responded to the piece by saying Lauer “is just wrong” and that his book was “thoroughly reported and fact-checked, including with Matt Lauer himself."
View co-host Sunny Hostin jabbed at Mediaite—founded by her colleague, ABC News chief legal analyst Dan Abrams—for providing a platform to the former NBC anchor and alleged rapist. (Disclosure: This author worked at Mediaite from Sept. 2016 until April 2018.)
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“I was really surprised that Mediaite would actually publish this op-ed,” Hostin declared. “Bottom line is that Ronan Farrow is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and Matt Lauer at this point is a disgraced journalist who’s been credibly accused of rape.”
Hostin went on to say she found it “rich that Matt Lauer is interviewing the ex-boyfriend of the woman who credibly accused him of rape and is calling it journalism—and investigative journalism at that.”
After Hostin said that Lauer clearly “has an axe to grind” and “didn’t do himself any favors” by going after Farrow, conservative co-host Meghan McCain took the baton and ran with it.
“I too was just as surprised as Sunny that anyone would print anything by Matt ‘rape button in his office’—Matt Lauer,” she exclaimed. “I don’t care what anything that guy has to say. He’s been accused credibly numerous times of sexual assault against numerous women.”
(McCain was referencing reporting that Lauer had a button that locked his NBC office door from the inside. According to NBC’s legal team and subsequent reports, the button in question was a common feature and allowed the occupant to close an open door without leaving his desk. However, the button reportedly did not allow for the occupant to lock the door from the inside.)
“Ronan Farrow is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and he’s someone—I hope I speak for this show and a lot of women in this industry—he has made our job safer,” McCain continued. “I know in this industry that an executive at any company can’t come to me and say, hey, Meghan, if you want a job, you have to do X sexually. That won’t fly when you have someone like Ronan Farrow around.”
McCain would then go on to wildly speculate that Smith published his column on Farrow because the investigative reporter may be working on a negative story about The New York Times, Smith’s employer.
“I read the article, and I just think the timing of this is very fishy,” she asserted. “I mean, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic. I want to know what article Ronan Farrow was working on that seems to threaten so many people in media.”
