1989 'Today' Show Controversy: Bryant Gumbel's Infamous Memo

Subscribe to Fight Back! on YouTube and to our newsletter for exclusive vintage and new content. Links below. ⬇️⬇️⬇️ David Horowitz was caught up in a Today show controversy on February 28, 1989, after a confidential memo from co-anchor Bryant Gumbel was leaked to the press. Horowitz was the show's consumer commentator for eight years. According to reports, in the four-page memo, Gumbel described Horowitz as “a walking cliché” and criticized other members of television’s No. 1 morning news program, including weatherman Willard Scott and film critic Gene Shalit. Only co-anchor Jane Pauley escaped his criticism. At the time, an NBC spokesman said the internal memo had been written five months earlier by Gumbel for Today executive producer Marty Ryan in response to a request for his analysis of the program. NBC News President Michael Gartner told The New York Times that the memo was stolen from Gumbel’s computer files by an NBC employee and then given to a Newsday reporter who disclosed the memo's contents.   Horowitz told the Times that the rest of the memo was “very positive” about his work and that Gumbel had kidded him to his face “about being ‘the cliché of consumerism,’” but he took that as a compliment. In an interview with Stadium in 2015, Gumbel said he never found out who leaked the memo. This rare clip from Entertainment Tonight is courtesy of the David Horowitz Archive. #retro #80s #today #tv #morning #show ------ ►Support our channel: https://buymeacoffee.com/fightback ►Subscribe to Watch Fight Back! https://www.youtube.com/@WatchFightBack ►Subscribe to our newsletter: https://fightback.beehiiv.com/subscribe