Whatever you think of Curry as a “Today” co-host, and there are legitimate disagreements on that point, no one deserves this sort of slow, forced march to a public execution.
For a solid week, from the moment The Times released a story detailing just what NBC had in mind — including her expected replacement by “Today” third-hour host Savannah Guthrie — Curry had to go on the air every day and smile.
Knowing that all her bosses, all her colleagues, almost all the media and millions of her viewers realized her employer didn’t want her there anymore.
Slow-motion dismissal may be an okay management tactic if you suspect an unpaid intern is smoking weed on lunch break. For someone who has been with the company 22 years, and whom NBC seems to genuinely value, it’s unfathomable.
“Today” is too high-profile a show, and making a host change at the time when ABC’s “Good Morning America” has pulled almost even was inevitably going to roil the pond.
NBC was hoping, no doubt, that once it had decided to bump Curry to another job, she would agree to a hugfest statement about how she loves “Today,” but couldn’t pass up this new dream offer of having her own personal news team to roam the world with cherry-picking the best stories.
Curry did say she loves that new job, as she should. But when she also described the offer as NBC “throwing some fancy titles at me,” it was clear she wasn’t going to hide how she really felt about being dumped from “Today.”
Nor did she have a reason to hide it. She’s not the perp here. She’s the vic.
Minutes after her new position was formally announced — she will be NBC News National and International Correspondent/Anchor and “Today” Anchor at Large, which is a fancy title — NBC issued a statement in which officials right up to NBC News President Steve Capus showered her with torrents of lavish praise.
And that’s great. But where were Capus and everybody else during the preceding week, when all we heard from NBC was blackout silence?
Matt Lauer joined the chorus of praise Thursday, hailing Curry’s “big heart” and saying he looked forward to working together.
That’s great, too. But Lauer was also The Quiet Man for the preceding seven days.
Now sure, it would have been inappropriate for anyone to comment on the undoubtedly delicate contract negotiations. But nothing would have stopped anyone at NBC from whispering a few general words of personal support. No one did.
As for the argument this was a private matter, that played a lot better before the whole world knew it was going on. And whether or not NBC was the source of the original revelation, NBC had ways to make it less uncomfortable. It never employed them.
NBC seemed to treat this whole issue as surgery, removing an unwanted object, and that attitude continued to the end.
Where previous “Today” hosts were sent off with video tributes and long reminiscences, Curry got no clips and less than a minute for each year of her service.
Maybe in the long term this will revive “Today.” Right now, it just feels clumsy and cold.
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