An old comment from Ann Curry claiming that her final months on Today was torture is back in the news as a new report has revealed that Matt Lauer is soaring in the ratings.
Ann Curry‘s final months of torture has some wondering what is the definition of torture. According to vocabulary.com ,torture is:
the deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons in an attempt to force another person to yield information or to make a confession or for any other reason.
Weeks after being fired from the Today show in 2012 because Matt Lauer disliked her, Ann Curry told local media that she was harassed and mocked by her boss and co-workers.
In his book, Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV, Brian Stelter said that a close source to the morning show confirmed that a picture of Curry wearing a yellow dress was plastered on the office wall, and she was compared to Big Bird. The insider told Stelter at the time:
“A lot of time in the control room was spent making fun of Ann’s outfit choices or just generally messing with her.”
It was also claimed that the executive producer of Today, Jim Bell, went on what he called “Operation Bambi” after a friend explained that terminating a journalist is like “killing Bambi,” where he “commissioned a blooper reel of Curry’s worst on-air mistakes.”
Another producer revealed that Bell once invited the cast and crew into his office to show a mistake Curry made while talking on the air with a local station. After getting fired from the program, Curry went into hiding and felt “profoundly hurt and humiliated,” according to Stelter. “She told friends that her final months were a form of professional torture.”
Since getting Curry fired, Lauer has seen the ratings for his TV show grow and his likeability with women improve.
“In 2015, however, ratings for Today are growing, and so too are Lauer’s numbers, particularly among women. Among women 18 or older, Lauer’s Q Score has moved from an 8 to a 12 over the past year,” said Henry Schafer, executive vice president of The Q Scores Company.
Do you miss Ann Curry’s work on Today?
