Charlie Rose fired at CBS News after harassment allegations
In an email to staff members, the news organization’s president in David Rhodes wrote the following:
“A short time ago we terminated Charlie Rose’s employment with CBS News, effective immediately … “This followed the revelation yesterday of extremely disturbing and intolerable behavior said to have revolved around his PBS program. Despite Charlie’s important journalistic contribution to our news division, there is absolutely nothing more important, in this or any organization, than ensuring a safe, professional workplace — a supportive environment where people feel they can do their best work. We need to be such a place.”
The quick action by CBS is their way of getting ahead of the story and doing their part to try and keep this from becoming an enormous distraction that causes the focus to deviate from much of the other great work that they do. This is a pattern that we expect some other networks to now follow in the near future if similar allegations are raised. We’ve seen just how long stories like this can sit in the news cycle and as a result of that, we expect that broadcasters are going to act rather quickly on this as opposed to making a decision that is slow and cautious. They have to think about their own image and above trust — they need to ensure that viewers all over the country will trust them, and that’s hard when you have someone at the center of an active investigation.
This is different than an actor on a TV show. This is someone whose responsibility is to showcase on a constant basis the utmost of integrity. That is something that they really should be a priority for news stations everywhere. CBS This Morning can move forward with the people that they have, but we hope that they make some additional decisions and hires in the near future.
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