🌎Where in the World is Matt Lauer's Reputation?

Martha. Dump truck in the flesh. Here comes the cootie squad. We should shut up, Heather. Sorry. Heather. Look who's with her. Oh, my God. Dang dang diggity Dang. Dang, dang Dang diggity dang. Matt Lauer is having a very bad week. And since we're still in that week, I wanted to hop in and record this special edition of the podcast because I couldn't help myself. The Matt Lauer PR debacle is just the type of story I need to help a better public relations practitioner and to help people, executives, leaders who I work with, to help them in their communication strategies. And it is a story that I needed to deconstruct and try and predict its outcome based on PR and crisis management strategy and tactics deployed by Lauer and his team. And trust me, there was a team, a big one. And I'll reveal at the end of the episode if that crisis team should be on speed dial for the next public person who finds themselves in the fix. So for the competent communications podcast, this is a special Matt Lauer edition of where in the World is Matt Lauer's Reputation? A brief recap, because we all know the story. In November of 2017, NBC News announced that Lauer was dead. Dunzo after an unidentified female NBC employee had reported him for sexual harassment. And this was during the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. I remember when this announcement happened. I first had a notification on my phone and then, of course, I saw the news reports. I know I was in a hotel room, but I have no idea where I was at the time. But as I was watching the news that day and as I was reading all the stories about him in the tweets, I suspected that Matt Lauer would have difficulty coming back from this because there were a lot of rumors out there that he was engaging in this type behavior. Anyway, so when it happened, it really wasn't that much of a surprise. And it turns out that Andrew Lack, who's the chairman of NBC News, so after this happened, he had sent out a memorandum to the staff, so acknowledging the incident, which is good, and the firing. But as we later find out in the book, the victim felt that she was outed because he basically made it easy to pinpoint who the accuser was, was. And I want you to note that point because I'm going to come back to it later because it's a part of the overall story now. NBC News, at the time, they were aware that there were stories out there in the New York Times and Variety conducting investigations into Matt Lauer. And this, of course, was a part of the whole entire MeToo movement where, where reporters had started first with the New York Times and the Harvey Weinstein case, where they were going down the list of known people, mostly men who behaved inappropriately. And of course, Matt Lauer was on that list and there wasn't much of a surprise there. And since then, now we're in 2019. Up until this week, Lauer only made a few brief, you know, comments and would show up in the press. He did respond to it right after the event happened. And since then, he's been low, like no one's ever seen him, except he may pop up in an article or in the New York Post because he lives out in the Hamptons now. So once I think I saw a story about him at a horse show with his wife and his daughter. But note that, because even that is a part of the plan. Now onto the fallout. Now, this week, the viral headline was all about the book Catch and Kill by journalist Ronan Farrow. And in the book, Pharaoh releases the name of the accuser. But Brooke Nevilles, and she recounts in detail what had happened in the affair with Matt Lauer and had discussed. There was a lot of a lot about their relationship that had mutual consent, but there were parts that did not. And the key timeline, the time frame was around the 2014 Winter Olympics. And as Farrow wrote in the book, Neville's thought that the sexual encounters with Lauer, even though she admitted to partaking in them, she characterized the interactions as transactional because she felt that Lauer had control over her career. Now, the day before the book dropped, there was another viral moment because we finally heard from Matt Lauer, but it wasn't from him directly. It was from Matt Lauer mouthing a song through the app TikTok through a video posted by his daughter Romy. Now it does when you watch the video, and I'm going to include a video, the link in the show notes on the website and your app so you can watch the video. It is his daughter's account and it looks like a moment of a father and a daughter having fun. A lighthearted moment. At one point, Matt Lauer sitting in his kitchen eating it looks like cereal all by himself because he's the divorced dad now. The daughter happily, you know, singing and dancing next to him. I think I forgot to check in with my kids. I think it's the Heather soundtrack that they were singing. Anyway, Cutie, cutie video. When I first saw this video and I had tweeted it. I felt that it was a very intentional video to post because the day before the TikTok video dropped, Adam Sandler had a viral moment with his two daughters. He was at a concert, brought his two daughters on stage, it was at a show and they sang a Taylor Swift song and Adam Sandler accompanied his daughters on the guitar. And of course that moment went viral. And it's a very sweet video. And people, probably more seasoned PR types would note that Adam Sandler has a movie coming out, uncut gems. And it's the first time he's ever, I would say second time. I remember he had another movie, Spanglish, where he had Oscar buzz. So this is that viral moment. Whether staged or not, it worked for Adam Sandler. I think Matt Lauer's crisis team sat down and said, how can we frame our client? He can no longer be the sad husband at home, the one who's repenting for his sins because they're divorced and he can't be the journalist, hard hitting journalist because he doesn't have a job. So what can we make him? Let's make him a caring father, which no doubt Matt Lauer probably is. You know, by all indications that. So they decided, I think, to quickly capitalize on the Adam Sandler viral moment. And in a viral moment, it's the word moment. It's very quick, it's very fast and that's what I think happened in terms of their planning, their thinking, their logic. They didn't really think about it too much and they did something. I'm going to assume that there wasn't a 14 year old on the crisis team because what happened with the TikTok video, it was cute. It made Matt Lauer look like the fun dad, which is what we all want, right? I thought it was a little awkward, actually. I also noted that Matt Lauer looked very, very skinny. Who knows, that could have been deliberate as well. But I don't think they realize at the end of that TikTok video, his daughter Romy is singing a song and she uses a bit of an expletive at the end of it. Now, I'm not going to air it, but you can go ahead and link it. And I don't think most people like me. The first time I watched it, I didn't go all the way to the end because I didn't want to go all the way to the end. But when I was really thinking about it, I thought, no, I do want to watch all the way to the end because I want to see, since it's part of a plan, tell me what the ending is. The daughter makes a very, very discreet, quick, but very deliberate song choice. So listen to it. And it's targeted towards a woman negatively. And I had tweeted that you couldn't find a worse last line to come out of his daughter's mouth. It sounded like a disparaging remark against another female who may be going after her father. Cue the Ronan Farrow book drop the next day. So that's without a doubt, that TikTok video was sent out, was probably pushed out. His team probably let a few publications know, probably called Page Six and said, you know, look out for this video. They may even sent a link to it, whatever it is. But I don't think anyone watched it to the end, because if they did, they would not have allowed it to happen. Side Note, about the TikTok video, I had tweeted a link to the video because I had noted after watching it to the end point what the daughter had said. And I thought that was incredibly awkward timing, to say the least. And I had, you know, mentioned that in my tweet, and I was debating about tweeting a teenage girl's TikTok video, and I debated if I should delete it. Being a parent of a teen daughter who is on TikTok, and I have no idea what she's doing on TikTok. But then I let it go. And then when I got down to the room to speak, I noticed that my Twitter was blowing up, and it was because the ABC anchor in New York City had retweeted my tweet. So I received a lot of feedback, and one woman lambasted me for sharing a public video. But even when I saw her mention that note in the. In the tweet, I thought, you know what? This is a part of the society that we're in now. It's. The TikTok video was not private. You know, she didn't hide it. It was very. A very deliberate part of a PR plan. And as a PR practitioner, I'm gonna speak about that video now. Moving on. So the next day, Ronan Farrow's book drops. And we know it is a bombshell of a book. Matt Lauer did know about the book. He and his lawyers received an advance copy. So they knew precisely what was in the book, which is why the TikTok video was a part of a plan. I think it was rushed, but I still think it was part of an overall tactic to try and reclaim his reputation, because that's the framing. He's a dad. Now, that opinion was confirmed when Matt Lauer had a full letter that he sent through his lawyers on October 9, and it was a long one. And when I got back to my hotel room after my talk, I sat down and I read it. Now, if you've listened to my podcast before, you've heard me talk about the formula that I use for crisis management and I run it as like a vetting process. So whenever there is anyone that's going through something publicly in the pr, crisis management nature, I just run it through the formula and I can tell and I've yet to be proven wrong if they'll survive it or not. Now, it's not ironclad, it's not guaranteed, but so far I'm running at 100% with every example that that I've run through it. Now let's run Matt Lauer's letter and his overall plan through the formula. Now, again, as a reminder, the steps, I look at them as steps. Step one is to accept, acknowledge or apologize for your role and whatever the PR debacle happens to be. Step two is your chance to put it into context. This is where you can lay out the reason why you were involved or explain why you did what. Step three, the plans, the priorities, the promises that you're going to make to change, more often than not, you're going to need to change something. And if you do all of those three steps, then you are allowed the final step, which is the bonus step and I call that the ask, where you can ask for something, you can ask for forgiveness, you can ask for your job back, you can ask for just a clean reputation, a clean slate or somewhat clean slate to be to reclaim your job or your life or to do something else. Every single person that has gone through some type of crisis in the last year, I've run through it. If they follow all the steps, they can land on that fourth step. If not, they fall off of it. Now, let's run Matt Lauer's letter through the steps. I'm not going to read the entire letter. You can read that. I'm going to include a link to it in the show notes as well. I'm just going to highlight where I think that Matt Lauer is hitting the steps. Now, his full letter came out, as I said, on October 9th. He starts here. Over the past two years, people have asked why I have not spoken out to defend myself more vigorously against some of the false and salacious allegations leveled at me. It is a fair Question. And the answer is deeply personal. Despite my desire to set the record straight and confront the individuals making false allegations, I wanted nothing less than to create more headlines my kids would read and a new gathering of photographers at the end of our driveway. So I decided to just stay quiet and work on repairing my relationship with the people I love. It has been the most important full time job I have ever had. But my silence has been a mistake. Listening to that first statement, it is clear that that is step two. He is putting everything into context. And you can also hear the framing. He is framing himself as a devoted, dedicated father. And it is the kids, his family, those are the people who are hurt. Now I'm going to go on. And he talks about the book. He talks about it being a publicity stunt. The next piece he states, I had an extramarital affair with brooke Nevills in 2014. And then he goes on in excruciating detail about their relationship. Relationship. Now here is, in the first part of it, he is doing step one, which is admitting to the affair. But part of the admission is the excruciating detail. And he's putting that in there deliberately, I believe to show that it was mutual consent. That is the second part of the framing that Matt Lauer's team is proposing and trying to proactively push out. Brooke did do or say anything to object, which is true, as Brooke Neville said, when, when one sexual act was happening to her, somewhat against her will, she said she was intoxicated. She said she was crying into the pillow. So that is true. She did not say anything, but she was apparently crying. But Matt Lauer said she certainly did not cry. She was a fully enthusiastic and willing partner. Ouch. I am not Brooke. I have not been in a situation like Brooke. But even that line, ouch, that hurts. All right. The letter continues to go on and on. Other highlights in the letter, Brooke now says that she was terrified about the control I had over her career and felt pressure to agree to our encounters after Sochi. So they continued their relationship and he laid out in detail where they continued their relationship and how. And then he says, in the end here I admit I ended the affair poorly. I simply stopped communicating with her. Those are two very key lines that in my opinion are key indicators to what will happen to Matt Lauer's reputation because it tells me about Matt Lauer's mindset during the affair. Now, Brooke saying that she was terrified about the control. He's trying to diminish her feelings. But it's very similar to Comparing President Bill Clinton when he had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. There was a huge power imbalance between a president of the United States and an intern. And most people understood that the same could apply to Matt Lauer. You can't be the most powerful man in network news, which I think he was. And many people would say the same. And she was just a producer, and she wasn't even a producer for NBC. She worked for Meredith Vieira at the time. So, no, she didn't have a lot of. A lot of power. So it's very believable that she would feel that her job would be at risk, because at least publicly, we know that Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer were friends. So she probably was worried about her job. Now, another key indicator about Matt Lauer's fate is in this line. I admit I ended the affair poorly. I simply stopped communicating with her. That is a lesson for anyone. Whether you are having an affair that you end, or if you're a leader or if you own a business, you run a business, you run a big business, or you run a big part of a business, whether it's someone you're in a relationship with or it's your customer. What happens when you simply stop communicating with a person? What it does is create another power imbalance, and powerlessness leads to anger. Now, moving on with the letter, he says, Between February 2014 and 2017, Brooke and I saw each other more than a dozen times at professional gatherings, both large and small. Despite the fact that our affair was over, she always went out of her way to greet me warmly and engage in conversation. It was not until I was called in to speak to an NBC attorney that I first learned Brooke had any complaint. So again, what Matt Lauer's trying to frame here is that Brooke was fine. She was cool, because she never came up to him at any event and said, you bastard. You ruined my life. You did this. You performed this. No, no, no, no. That's what he wants people to think. However, if I had to put myself in Brooke's shoes, I. I'm sure what she was trying to do was re engage with Matt Lauer to simply have a conversation so she could get her closure again. Whether you are a spurned lover or you are a customer, this is where Matt Lauer started to go wrong with his approach to Brooke. He dismissed her. The letter goes on and on and on to provide context after context after context. But we never, ever hear from Matt Lauer the true context of what we should be hearing. Because in this day and age of the call out culture in this day and age of trust, transparency, openness, value system. People want to know what your values are. And what Brooke was likely just trying to get out of Matt Lauer on those occasions was closure. But what Matt was doing was victim blaming Brooke and she said that in a response to NBC that she had sent out based on Matt Lauer's letter and she had called him out for victim blaming. He was fixating on the mutual relationship between the two of them and he was saying that Neville is partially at F for everything that happened. Now I know there are people that I have talked to about about this case and I got their immediate feedback and many said the same thing and many by the way, were women and they said why would she do it? Why would she do it? Like for the money. And it's not that women are pointing a finger at Brooke, but they're not really thinking about the whole story. They're thinking about the surface story. They're thinking about a story that Matt Lauer wants you to think about, that she is a crazy woman that wanted to be with Matt Lauer, wasn't with Matt Lauer so she went after him and tried to punish him with the money in the book and so on. It's a little Fatal Attraction esque for Generation X people and older. If I say Alex Forrest burning a rabbit in a, in a pot, you would know what I'm talking about. But that's not what happened. Let's look at it from the PR point of view and then finally I'm going to reveal what I think is going to happen to Matt Lauer when I read his letter. So we know Matt Lauer beginning to end now we know everything that needs to be said about Matt Lauer and oh boy, do we know everything and more. The first thing he did in the letter is he put everything into context. He did admit to having an affair, but he framed it as a mutual affair. He acknowledged that he was in an affair, but the one thing he did not do is apologize for it. The next step, the plans, the priorities, the promises, he completely avoided the step. So he stepped over step one, landed on step two, spent a lot of time on step two, hopped over step three and he's asking people for the step four. So you already know what my answer is going to be if Matt Lauer is going to survive this reputation hit. And the answer is no. The reason why it happened to him is not because a woman was scorned and she wanted to go after Matt Lauer. What Matt Lauer did, to use a millennial term, is that he ghosted her, he ghosted Brooke and that left her powerless. Matt thinks that everyone's going to understand why he ended the relationship like she was a young woman and she was chasing me around and he called me at my house and that's not cool when you call me at the house. He's hoping that at least half the population, the men will get it. You know that when you no longer want to be with the chick, you just stop talking to her. You don't want any of that awkwardness. But that's not what she was. All she was looking for was closure. Because I think a lot of women in that situation would understand that. She just wanted to have a conversation, to have Matt Lauer say, hey, thanks, but you know what, we can't continue with this. I mean, he's married. She's going to understand that. And she just wanted to know, I think, not that I'm Brooke, that her job wasn't in peril, that her job wasn't in jeopardy, that her life wasn't going to change because she made a huge mistake by having an affair with Matt Lauer. Now, the other piece that Matt is not bringing into this letter again was a power imbalance. There clearly was one. She felt vulnerable. She's probably a very bright woman considering her job. She's very smart, she's probably very normal, the least close you can get to being a psycho woman. She's very probably sound mind and probably a great person. But she was vulnerable because she was young and she was working at the network. And that's when people can strike other people, is when they're at a vulnerable moment and they find ways to get into their head and get into their psyche. And Matt Lauer did that because he had more power and she was in a position to be swayed. What she probably mutually agrees on is the fact that she made a mistake and she went in to a relationship with a married man. She knew she made a mistake. People can understand it. People do that all the time and they know why they did it too. And they're just kind of hoping for the best. But when it ends, it's not that they want to continue the relationship, they just want to be heard for why it ended. They just want to give their side of the story and move on with their lives. And that's the reason why I think she took the money. It wasn't about money, it was about closure. She. She was hoping that the money would give her that closure and that it would go away. Likely what happened to Brooke, which probably happens to a lot of women that are spurned in relationship, is it probably grew bigger and bigger in her head and rented more space. And then when Rona Ronan Farrow came around and started asking her questions because everyone knew who she was anyway, she was ready to talk. Now, I know I'm focusing on the relationship, the sexual relationship between two people, but you could apply this to a boss and employee, and in a working relationship, you could apply it to two friends. You could apply it as a business to a customer. So it doesn't matter if you're a scorned lover or a customer with bad service. It's not about the bad treatment during the process. Anyone can handle that. It's the silence. And the irony is noted in his letter. He said the silence was his fault, but it wasn't from not saying any information about the affair when it first came out, when it was outed, but it was the silence towards Brooke. Lauer exerted his power over Brooke by ghosting her. And in her position, she did not have any recourse. He thinks she wanted the affair to continue, but likely all she wanted was closure. It's a social monitoring system that we all have all the cues that are out there for how we should respond. People know how to respond normally in day to day conversations and relationships with customers, we all do. But when your ground gets shattered and it moves, when people get ghosted, they have no closure. And without closure, you start to question yourself, your choices that you make, and it starts to sabotage you, your self worth, your self esteem, your power, the power imbalance. So whether you've been dumped or whether you're just a customer getting horrible service, it's that imbalance of power. And that's why she went to Ronan Farrow. And that is why Matt Lauer, in my opinion, is never going to recover from this. Because not only did he miss all the steps, he missed the point of how he hurt Brook. And I can tell you there's a big part of the generation that gets that. He was my favorite broadcaster and I hated to see him go, but you know what? I never want to see him again. And I don't think he deserves to have any on air position and I doubt he ever will. Last piece. What would I do if I did work for Matt Lauer, if I was a part of his crisis team? At this point, the only thing that he can do is have that sit down interview. Everybody does it. And it also seems to Work. And the reason why is because you're letting people in. People make mistakes all the time, happens all the time. And sometimes the mistake can actually help you in many cases. Remember, you hear me say, with every crisis, there is an opportunity, and there is an opportunity for redemption. A lot of the men that fell because of the MeToo movement had a really difficult time coming back because it's hard to respond and frame why you treated women a certain way. But some tried, like Louis CK he was pretty close because he came out and followed the steps. He admitted it. He flat out admitted what he did. He put it into context why he did it, and then he said he was gonna change. The reason why he didn't, he wasn't able to complete the entire PR rehab and he's now still in oblivion is because he reneged on it. As soon as he started going on stage again, he started doing the same sick sex jokes and people on their ph started spreading it and it went viral. So it's like he got bit by the hand that fed him. For Matt Lauer, it's going to be the same thing. The only thing he can do is an interview. And in that interview, he has to say he's sorry, he has to accept blame, he has to say there is a power imbalance. And he has to say, you know what? I was so angry when that news story happened, and that was the letter that I had to put out. Will we ever see Matt Lauer again on morning television? Not likely. But if he does some type of admission about his role and truly apologize for what he did, he at least will put himself in a good position to do something. It just won't be on the air. What's the lesson in all this? Because there aren't that many male morning anchors out there, so I'm sure there isn't anyone listening to this podcast that can get direct advice. However, there's a good life lesson in here. Again, if you're a leader, if you own a business, if you run a customer service department, if you work for a for profit or nonprofit profit or a cooperative, and you have members, you have people that own the cooperative. Remember, they all have a voice and they all want to be heard. And when things go wrong, remember, people are sensible. They understand why things happen. And the first step to getting them to calm down and in coming to a resolution is by acknowledging that there's a problem and by acknowledging what your role is in that problem. And the best part, the biggest part, what you have to do is you have to listen. You have to let them speak. If you ghost someone, you will lose all trust that that person has ever had in you. So whether it's a customer or a scorned lover, if you don't allow them the closure, they will never, ever trust you again. And in a viral environment, you never know, it could spread. The Final Takeaway the Matt Lauer story is not about an affair gone bad. It's not about a morning network anchor, a popular morning network anchor who lost his job during the MeToo movement. It's a lesson about listening. It's a lesson about letting a person have their final word. It's a lesson about closure. And it's a lesson about power. If you have too much power in a relationship or if you have too much power in a business, if you don't listen to the person, if you don't listen to the customer and they feel powerless, then that will turn to anger. At best case scenario, you're going to lose their trust. The worst case scenario, they're going to bring you down. That's it for this special edition of the Confident Communications Podcast. Thanks for listening, Sam.