-By Warner Todd Huston
Matt Lauer’s tenure at NBC’s Today show seems destined to end on the most sour note possible. Not only is he finding himself increasingly unhappy on the job, he’s also now being slammed by fans on the street whenever he and his morning show co-hosts try to do on location segments.
In fact, the hate has become so thick from fans that Lauer is reported to be “freaked out” by fans slamming him as the man who axed Ann Curry. And on the set he is “miserable” and feels “abused.”
The fans are just as “miserable” as Lauer.
Network sources tell the website Lauer has been getting constant verbal abuse by total strangers screaming things like “You’re a bad guy” and “You got Ann fired. Does that make you happy?”
It’s become a hostile work place on the set of Today as staffers and stage workers have found themselves divided up into warring camps over the firing of Ann Curry. Apparently it has become “team Matt” versus “team Ann” at NBC.
Lauer can’t make anyone happy these days, either. Apparently some Today staffers have secretly criticized how the long-time, $25 million-a-year host treated actress Ann Hathaway. Hathaway was caught sans undergarments in paparazzi photos recently and Lauer’s opening remark when she came to visit the set was, “We’ve seen a lot of you lately.”
Gauche, Matt, gauche.
One staffer who wanted to remain unnamed criticized no class Matt for how he treated Hathaway saying, “Who treats Anne Hathaway like that??? She’s a lady. She [should have] slapped Matt Lauer.”
How long NBC will put up with this downward spiral before handing Lauer his walking papers remains to be seen. Already Today has all too often slipped to second place in the ratings game where once it was king of the morning.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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