Tom, Brokaw struck back hard against claims that he behaved inappropriately with a female staffer in the 90’s.
Linda Vester claims that when she a bright-eyed young journalist eager to break into night-time news, Brokaw took advantage of his powerful career and tickled her waist without permission. She also says that he tried to kiss her.
Brokaw denies all of the allegations.
“It is 4:00 am on the first day of my new life as an accused predator in the universe of American journalism. I was ambushed and then perp walked across the pages of The Washington Post and Variety as an avatar of male misogyny, taken to the guillotine and stripped of any honor and achievement I had earned in more than a half-century of journalism and citizenship,” Brokaw wrote in an email sent to his NBC colleagues.
Instead, I am facing a long list of grievances from a former colleague who left NBC News angry that she had failed in her pursuit of stardom. She has unleashed a torrent of unsubstantiated criticism and attacks on me more than twenty years after I opened the door for her and a new job at Fox News.”
In Brokaw’s version of events, Vester was a fame-hungry woman who tried to use him to catapult her career. He says that her story is completely made-up and implies that she’s either delusional or a practiced liar.
“As an eager beginner, Vester, like others in that category, was eager for advice and camaraderie with senior colleagues. She often sought me out for informal meetings… She was coy, not frightened, filled with office gossip, including a recent rumor of an affair,” Brokaw wrote.
Like most #MeToo cases, everything hinges on which side of the story you like. There’s no proof, either way, that the alleged incident occurred 23 years ago.
Who do you believe?
(Source: Hollywood Reporter)