Fox host calls for NBC News chief to resign over Weinstein story

Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Thursday night called for NBC News president Noah Oppenheim to step down or “be fired” in the wake of the network’s decision not to air Ronan Farrow’s bombshell report containing explosive allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein.

“Noah Oppenheim ought to resign immediately, and if he doesn’t, he ought to be fired immediately by NBC’s parent company Comcast,” Carlson said on his show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

“News executives are not allowed to tell lies. They’re not allowed to participate in coverups. They ought to answer straight-forward questions straight forwardly. When they don’t, you know they’re corrupt, and that’s exactly what NBC News is,” the Fox News host continued.

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Carlson’s comments come a day after Oppenheim defended the network’s past decision not to move forward with Farrow’s story, which was published in The New Yorker earlier this week.

The New Yorker story detailed allegations from three women who accused Weinstein of rape, and came a week after The New York Times published a story detailing sexual harassment allegations against the veteran Hollywood producer stretching back decades.

“The notion that we would try to cover for a powerful person is deeply offensive to all of us,” Oppenheim said Wednesday. “Like pretty much every newspaper and magazine in L.A. and New York, The New York Times up until last week, New York Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, you name it, we were on that long list of places that chased this thing.”

The NBC News chief defended the network after Farrow told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that she’d “have to ask NBC and NBC executives” on why Farrow decided to take his story to The New Yorker. 

“I walked into the door at The New Yorker with an explosive reportable piece that should have been public earlier,” said Farrow, who used to have a show on the network. “And immediately, obviously, The New Yorker recognized that, and it is not accurate to say that it was not reportable.”

“In fact, there were multiple determinations that it was reportable at NBC,” he added.

Farrow also suggested that the threat of lawsuits could have played a role in the network’s decision not to run with the story. 

New Yorker editor David Remnick told The Washington Post this week that Farrow “had a lot of material” when he approached the magazine about publishing the Weinstein story, and defended the journalist as “an honest person who has worked extremely hard.”

This is not the first time NBC News has faced backlash for its handling of a story regarding sexual assault.

The Washington Post last year published the infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape in which President Trump could be heard bragging about kissing and groping women. Speculation surfaced that NBC News did not report the story because “Access Hollywood” is produced by NBC.