NBC News is struggling in the wake of the scandal caused by Brian Williams’s apparent false claims about being in an aircraft that took RPG fire. But while the male anchor is currently suspended, he may get his job back — and two women could end up taking the fall. If the reports prove to be true, they will follow a script where women in leadership get pushed out in times of trouble — known as the “glass cliff.”
Patricia Fili-Krushel, a woman currently the chairman of NBCUniversal News Group, is expected to step down and take a different position within the larger company, while Andrew Lack, a man and former president of NBC News, is in advanced talks to take on a senior role. Deborah Turness, another woman and president of NBC News, isn’t expected to be fired but is likely to be moved to a different role, although some have called for her resignation.
Meanwhile, Lack’s return to the unit is a “near-guarantee” that Williams will get to come back to his job, according to Dylan Byers at Politico.
NBC has been grappling with other challenges beyond the Williams scandal. Its “Today” morning show has fallen behind ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and CNBC and MSNBC have been struggling with ratings, with the latter changing some of its lineup recently. Turness has been blamed for Today’s ratings as well as the drawn-out firing of David Gregory from Meet the Press.
But she didn’t directly oversee the handling of Williams’s scandal, the catalyst for the executive shakeups. And even if the two women had been more involved in the controversy, why should anyone but Williams be in danger of losing their jobs over his own fabrications?
The company may be trying to make high-profile changes to show that it’s responding to the situation. But it’s following a common script by letting the ax fall on women and ushering in or protecting men. Women and people of color are more likely to be promoted when companies are struggling, and if they can’t engineer a turnaround in performance, they get pushed out. They are then usually replaced by a white man. Other research finds female CEOs are more likely than male ones to be forced out of their jobs. This happens because women are seen as less competent leaders, so white men tend to hold onto control during smooth sailing, but rough patches can make companies feel they need to shake things up. When the shakeup doesn’t pan out, they turn back to the “white male savior.”
This phenomenon is known as the “glass cliff”: women are given control of struggling organizations and then blamed when things don’t turn around (although it should be noted many of them have been able to pull it off). Multiple studies have uncovered evidence of the glass cliff. There are lots of other real life examples: Mary Barra became the first woman to run General Motors (or any global carmaker) just before its massive airbag scandal hit. Two different women were given leadership roles in male-dominated finance right around the beginning of the crisis and then lost their jobs, while the first high-profile executive blamed for the crisis was a woman and the first head to roll after JP Morgan’s London Whale trade surfaced was a woman. Sunoco’s first female CEO, Lynn Laverty Elesnhans, was put in charge after the company’s shares had fallen 52 percent. Xerox’s first female CEO, Anne M. Mulcahy, took the job when the company was $17 billion in debt and under investigation. Carly Fiorina became CEO at Hewlett-Packard just as the tech bubble burst.
It crops up outside of business as well: Katie Couric became anchor of CBS Evening News after its ratings were in third place, and Diane Sawyer was hired at ABC World News after evening news programs had lost more than half of their audience. Even in the federal government, Julia Pierson became the first woman to lead the Secret Service after it had already been rocked by scandal and then resigned when yet another hit.
Lack, the former NBC exec who is likely to be brought in to smooth over the scandals, previously ran the NBC news unit from 1993 to 2001. His tenure was during “a glory period” for the unit, according to the Wall Street Journal. He now gets to come back as the savior.
Media is already male-dominated. Overall, female journalists make up just 36 percent of bylines and on-air appearances. Men also anchor 60 percent of news broadcasts. The gap is lager in TV leadership: women make up just 17.8 percent of TV station general managers. This is similarly true at the top ranks of all kinds of businesses: women make up about 15 percent of executive officers at the country’s largest companies. It’s hard to see how progress can be made if women keep being handed leadership positions only to be pushed out when turmoil hits.