Matt Lauer said life at the struggling “Today” show was “disappointing” for him after Ann Curry's botched firing.
“The way the media treated what happened with Ann Curry was a disappointing learning experience. I was disappointed by the laziness of the media, the willingness to read a rumor, repeat that rumor, and treat it as a fact,” Lauer told Esquire.
Though the anchor says his salary has never been correctly reported, he said he still doesn’t think he can get away with complaining about his troubles.
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“Does anyone want to see a person who’s making the money that the newspapers say I’m making complaining, ‘Woe is me, my life is terrible, and people are being unfair’? No one would’ve had any patience for that,” he told the magazine. “So you just shut up and go about doing your job and hope that people who know you well — your friends and your family — know what’s true.”
But even given Lauer’s recent media beating, he implied he is still extremely grateful for his time at “Today.”
“If I were to write a contract and put it in front of a group of young broadcasters and journalists, and on this piece of paper it said, ‘You’re going to have 20 years as host of the ‘Today’ show, and 18 of those years are going to be so unbelievably fantastic that you’re going to think you’re living in a fantasy world. And one or two of those years is going to be incredibly frustrating and challenging,’ don’t you think every single one of those young broadcasters and journalists would grab that paper out of my hand and sign on the dotted line?”
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