Former NBC, Fox News Anchor Linda Vester Exposes Sex Culture in Newsrooms
(Parts of the following news analysis originally appeared in April on the Conservative Base.)
“Thursday will mark one year since Matt Lauer was fired from NBC’s “Today” show for sexual misconduct. But since that reckoning, has NBC News really changed?” asks former Fox News Channel and NBC News anchor Linda Vester.
“The culture and management of NBC News continue to silence women, while parent company Comcast apparently does nothing. It is time to hold the Comcast Board of Directors accountable,” Vester wrote in an op-ed for the Fox News web site.
It all began with Democrats and the majority of the news media chasing allegations of sexual impropriety against conservatives such as President Donald Trump, Fox News Channel’s late president Roger Ailes, Fox News’ top talking-head Bill O’Reilly and others. But as time goes on, those on the left are beginning to feel the heat as well, including media stars Matt Lauer and Tom Brokaw.
Brokaw, who is touted as the “legendary NBC anchor” was accused by a former NBC anchor, Linda Vester, of ongoing harassment that began when she was starting out more than 20-years-ago, according to her recent interviews with The Washington Post and Variety.
Among her accusations against Brokaw were three incidents involving his grabbing and manhandling her and attempting to kiss her.
Vester’s background includes being a Harvard graduate and completing work in the Middle East as an elite Fulbright scholar. Following her acceptance of her job at NBC, she was deployed three times to the Middle East, especially covering the Gulf War from Gaza where she showed her talent and intelligence as a foreign correspondent and war correspondent in the same vein as Liz Trotta, who covered Vietnam.
Upon Vester’s return to the states, she was promoted as a correspondent for The Weekend Today at age 28, making her among the youngest people to hold such an important national position.
During the two years, she alleges that Brokaw’s harassment intensified, Vester told Variety, recalling a night when Brokaw allegedly showed up at her flat, declaring he wanted to have an affair just before attempting to force her to kiss him.
Vester graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1987. She received an honors diploma from the Sorbonne in France after attending for one semester in 1985. In 1998 she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study Arabic and Middle East Affairs at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. She learned to speak both French and Arabic fluently.
Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell and Mika Brzezinski , three of NBC/MSNBC’s talking heads and arguably most far-left journalists, have gone on record defending Brokaw.
