Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, MSNBC President Phil Griffin said he won’t allow his network to be defined by a recent collection of controversial comments.
“These were judgment calls made by some of our people,” Griffin tells THR. “We quickly took responsibility for them and took action. They were unfortunate, but I’m not going to allow these specific moments of lack of judgment to define us.”
“We handled them,” says Griffin. “We were transparent. That is our philosophy: Be factual, and step up when you make a mistake. And I don’t see that among our competition, whether it’s getting something wrong on a major story or when there are clear inaccuracies and they’re not corrected.”
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Griffin also suggests the comments that caused the departures of Martin Bashir and Alec Baldwin (and caused a flurry of negative reaction for current host Melissa Harris-Perry) are not representative of a larger problem.
“Of course I’ve talked to everybody in the building about it — and we move on. Some of these mistakes are being played out far more inside the media world. I don’t think it hurt us in any way.”
On incoming host Ronan Farrrow’s critical tweet about Woody Allen allegedly molesting adopted daughter Dylan, Griffin is hands off.
“He’s a very clever guy,” says Griffin. “That’s a personal issue that he felt necessary to respond to. I’ll let it speak for itself.”