nbc is in damage control regarding its handling of an 11-year-old recording of on-air personality billy bush and republican presidential candidate donald trump talking in crude and misogynistic terms about women. mr.<u+00a0>bush<u+2019>s exit is being negotiated as a result of an nbc news review into the matter that determined he should have been more forthcoming about the existence of the recording, according to executives familiar with the situation. there are still unanswered questions regarding how long <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> may have been sitting on the tape, its path to the airwaves and who leaked it to the washington post last week before nbc could get its own story out. a complication is that the two comcast corp. players in the drama<u+2014>nbc news and the entertainment magazine show <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d><u+2014>have had a strained relationship over the years. <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> staff complain they are treated by the news organization like a minor partner, people at the show said. now, with nbc news exonerating its own handling the matter, the two sides are fighting to spare their reputations after being scooped by an outsider. the<u+00a0>bush-trump material was the property of <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> from when mr.<u+00a0>bush<u+00a0>was a co-anchor on the show and was working on a 2005 piece about mr. trump<u+2019>s filming of a cameo on an nbc soap opera. <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> is a daily show that competes with cbs corp. <u+2019>s <u+201c>entertainment tonight<u+201d> and warner bros.<u+2019> <u+201c>extra.<u+201d> initially, an executive close to the show said the footage was discovered early last week when a producer recalled it after the associated press published a story about crude remarks mr. trump had made on the set of the reality show <u+201c>the apprentice,<u+201d> which he starred in for nbc. since then, though, it has emerged that mr.<u+00a0>bush<u+00a0>himself shared knowledge of the recording with colleagues last august while he was covering olympics in rio de janeiro and there was debate about how to proceed, according to the people close to <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> and mr.<u+00a0>bush. <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> executive producer rob silverstein is a personal friend with mr.<u+00a0>bush<u+00a0>and was sensitive to the potential blowback the story could have, a person close to him said. nbc news and nbc executives insist they were unaware of the existence of the recording until last week. the stance that no one outside <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> knew of the tape is disputed by people close to messrs. silverstein and<u+00a0>bush, who feel their show and staff are being <u+201c>thrown under the bus<u+201d> to protect the news unit. <u+2018> we moved quickly and deliberately ... <u+2019> the story was slowed in part by legal reviews, as nbc<u+2019>s lawyers weighed whether mr. trump<u+2014>who, like mr.<u+00a0>bush, was wearing a microphone<u+2014>had any reasonable expectation of privacy, a person familiar with the matter said. on oct. 7, shortly after it was determined that <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> wouldn<u+2019>t get a piece aired until the following week, the material was leaked to the washington post from someone who nbc believes is one of its own employees. soon after their story posted, nbc followed up with a report on its cable network msnbc. both <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> and nbc news have been criticized for their slow disclosure of the tape considering how dramatically the washington post<u+2019>s publication shaped the dialogue in the two days leading up to the second presidential debate. the plan was for <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> to break the story with nbc news following up on it, the people said <u+201c>nbc news did exactly what you would expect from a great news organization. as soon as we saw the tape and made the assessment it was undoubtedly newsworthy, we moved quickly and deliberately to get it published and to do so in the most responsible way,<u+201d> a spokesman said earlier this week. as for mr.<u+00a0>bush, initially nbc executives insisted he wouldn<u+2019>t be reprimanded for his remarks on the tape. they quickly changed their minds over the weekend after mr. bush<u+2019>s role in video was widely criticized and nbc began negotiating his exit.<u+00a0>mr.<u+00a0>bush<u+00a0>had recently been named co-anchor of the<u+00a0>9 a.m. to 10 a.m.<u+00a0>hour of nbc<u+2019>s <u+201c>today,<u+201d> whose audience is primarily women. members of the <u+201c>today<u+201d> show staff also argued against him remaining, a senior nbc news executive said. write to joe flint at joe.flint@wsj.com
nbc<u+2019>s trump video misfire leads to finger pointing  - wsj
joe flint