In the wake of Lauer’s firing, a public discussion has erupted about previous accusations against him for sexist behavior, such as his public shaming of Anne Hathaway after a predatory photographer took an upskirt photo of her, or when Katie Couric complained that he “pinches me on the ass a lot.”

…[Lauer] was one of the most prominent proponents of the notion that it was a major scandal that Clinton had used her private email account to do official work as secretary of state, even though Colin Powell had done the same thing without controversy and multiple, thorough and seemingly endless examinations of her email history revealed nothing scandalous or even mildly interesting.

…When one looks down the lengthening list of prominent male journalists who have been credibly accused of sexual harassment, one thing that sticks out is that they were all obsessed with those godforsaken emails. Charlie Rose, Glenn Thrush, Mark Halperin, Bill O’Reilly: Besides being apparent sleazeballs, they were all big fans of the idea that the thousands of Democratic emails, some released by Clinton herself and some stolen by presumed Russian agents and leaked on WikiLeaks, would somehow turn into an earth-shattering scandal.

…Some grousing about Bernie Sanders dragging out the primary, but no evidence of illegal or unethical behavior. It was a big nothing-burger, but the relentless media drumbeat about “emails” meant that the American public was convinced there was a scandal — even as many were entirely unaware of the many corruption scandals surrounding Trump.

…At its heart, the whole story — which often verged on conspiracy theory — was rooted in misogynist myths about the inherently deceitful nature of women.

…This certainty that Clinton was somehow or other doing something nefarious with her emails was rooted in these ancient fears. That was why the story would never go away, no matter how many times it turned out that there was nothing interesting in her goddamn emails.

Matt Lauer and the emails: How accused harassers conjured a fake Hillary scandal – Salon.com

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