Dr. Nancy Snyderman Encouraged to Take a Break From NBC News, NBC News appears to be looking for time and the intrusion of other news stories to tamp down negative attention that has surrounded its chief medical editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, following news that she violated a self-imposed quarantine after being potentially exposed to Ebola in Liberia.
The network’s news president, Deborah Turness, issued a memo to staff members on Wednesday that included the announcement that Dr. Snyderman would take a break from her duties. (The network subsequently emphasized that this move was not a suspension.)
Ms. Turness told the staff that the longtime medical journalist had finished her 21-day quarantine and was symptom free, but that she and those who had traveled with her to Liberia had been encouraged to “take some time with their families and friends to help restore some normalcy to their lives.” Ms. Turness said they would return “next month.”
She couched that decision in positive terms, saying the news organization would “look forward” to that return. And she pointedly praised Dr. Snyderman’s work on the Ebola outbreak as “first class, firsthand reporting from the front lines of this tragic and monumental story.”
Critics in the media and in some health care circles had taken Dr. Snyderman to task when news reports said she had been seen outside her home in New Jersey during the period when she had said she would restrict her public activities. State health officials in New Jersey quickly imposed a mandatory quarantine on her. In a subsequent statement, Dr. Snyderman did not directly acknowledge that she violated the voluntary quarantine, but said instead that “members of our group” had.
In an Associated Press story this week, Kelly McBride, a co-author of “The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century” who comments on journalism ethics for the Poynter Institute, said that in the future “some news consumers are going to see the woman who put others at risk, rather than the reporter and professional with great experience.”
At the same time, many NBC executives and staff members spoke highly of Dr. Snyderman, whose career in network news began at ABC 25 years ago. (She joined NBC News in 2006.)
The move this week to reduce her profile could also be seen as a plan to keep her out of the public eye until the Ebola crisis has subsided and other news has seized public attention. On Wednesday, the attack on the Canadian Parliament dropped the Ebola stories out of the lead position in most news reports, and next week the midterm elections are expected to be the biggest story.
