Earlier in the week, reports of women accusing Former ABC News and NBC journalist Mark Halperin of sexual assault surfaced. Since then Halperin has been fired as a contributor at NBC and dropped by Penguin, the publishing house that was supposed to publish his upcoming book about his experience in the 2016 U.S. election. He was also dropped by HBO, which was planning to make a movie adaptation of the upcoming book. CNN reports that 5 women claim that Halperin sexually assaulted them during his time at ABC. The allegations range from Halperin kissing female employees, who were younger and less powerful than him, to grabbing a female employee’s breast.
Eleanor McManus, a former producer for Larry King Live, and Lara Setrakian have both gone on the record about the harassment they faced. Setrakian, who worked at ABC News as a junior reporter during the 2006 election cycle, claims that Halperin kissed and touched her inappropriately during a meeting in his office. Furthermore, The Washington Post has published accounts from nine women about Halperin harassing them during his time at ABC News.
Halperin has released a statement on Twitter, taking partial responsibility for his actions. “I acknowledge that, and I deeply regret it.” Halperin said in his statement. “Toward the end of my time at ABC News, I recognized I had a problem. No one had sued me, no one had filed a human resources complaint against me, no colleague had confronted me. But I didn’t need a call from HR to know that I was a selfish, immature person, who was behaving in a manner that had to stop.”
Although he continued on by saying that “Some of the allegations that have been made against me are not true.”
Please read my statement below. pic.twitter.com/8ld8k8DC6O
— Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) October 27, 2017
Halperin’s words may seem like a breath of fresh air, as we’re not used to seeing men in power take responsibility for their wrong-doing’s but Halperin definitely does not deserve anyone’s praise. His apology shouldn’t change the fact that he’s a predator and that he harmed several women, physically and emotionally.
Photo: Edward Kimmel
