Sad News from Lake Wobegon

Tuckerfan · Jan 23, 2018

More details surface.

Investigation: For some who lived in it, Keillor's world wasn't funny

When Minnesota Public Radio abruptly severed ties with Garrison Keillor in November, the sole explanation offered by the company was "inappropriate behavior" with a female colleague.

For his part, the creator and longtime host of A Prairie Home Companion described his offense as nothing more than having placed his hand on a woman's back to console her.

An investigation by MPR News, however, has learned of a years-long pattern of behavior that left several women who worked for Keillor feeling mistreated, sexualized or belittled. None of those incidents figure in the "inappropriate behavior" cited by MPR when it severed business ties.

Nor do they have anything to do with Keillor's story about putting a hand on a woman's back:

• In 2009, a subordinate who was romantically involved with Keillor received a check for $16,000 from his production company and was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement which, among other things, barred her from ever divulging personal or confidential details about him or his companies. She declined to sign the agreement, and never cashed the check.
• In 2012, Keillor wrote and publicly posted in his bookstore an off-color limerick about a young woman who worked there and the effect she had on his state of arousal.
• A producer fired from The Writer's Almanac in 1998 sued MPR, alleging age and sex discrimination, saying Keillor habitually bullied and humiliated her and ultimately replaced her with a younger woman.

• A 21-year-old college student received an email in 2001 in which Keillor, then her writing instructor at the University of Minnesota, revealed his "intense attraction" to her.

MPR News has interviewed more than 60 people who worked with or crossed professional paths with Keillor. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity because they still work in the industry or feared repercussions from Keillor or his attorneys.

The revelations create a portrait of Keillor more complicated than that of the folksy, avuncular storyteller whose brand of humor appealed to millions of listeners. They suggest a star who seemed heedless of the power imbalance that gave him an advantage in his relationships with younger women. They also raise questions about whether the company knew enough — or should have known enough — to stop the behavior of the personality who drove much of its success.

In an email to MPR News on Monday, Keillor said he could not comment for this story in part because he was in negotiations with Minnesota Public Radio over their business relationships. "But beyond that," he wrote, "I don't think MPR News can report fairly on MPR management's chaotic and disastrous actions."

He went on: "I think it would be a waste of time to engage in the he said/they said game. There are facts here that need to be respected. I'll be able to tell my side of the story at length, in my own words, in due course, and that's sufficient for me."

For weeks, Minnesota Public Radio refused MPR News' repeated requests to comment on the company's separation from Keillor. But as negotiations with Keillor's company stalled and pressure from news organizations mounted, Jon McTaggart, president and CEO of MPR and American Public Media Group, broke his silence.

In an interview with MPR News Tuesday afternoon, he said the company's separation of business interests from Keillor came after it received allegations of "dozens" of sexually inappropriate incidents involving Keillor and a woman who worked for him on A Prairie Home Companion. He said the allegations included requests for sexual contact and descriptions of unwanted sexual touching.

McTaggart, who after the interview with MPR News sent an email to MPR listeners and members further explaining the separation from Keillor, says cutting Keillor off was the most painful decision he's made as CEO. But in-house and external investigations into the matter bore details he could not ignore.

"When we reached a point that from all sources we had sufficient confidence in facts that really required us to act, we took the action we did," he said. "It was the right thing to do. It was the necessary thing to do, and we stand by it."

Although Keillor and MPR were instrumental to each other's success, Keillor hasn't been an MPR employee since 2002. That's when MPR entered into a contract with Keillor's company, Prairie Grand, to produce his shows. An MPR spokesperson said that until the recent separation, "MPR had financial and legal obligations to Prairie Grand related to licensing and production."

Keillor's abrupt departure from MPR's airwaves, announced by McTaggart about eight weeks ago, came as a shock to his legions of fans and listeners. Reactions ranged from dismay to outrage and perplexity.

When he made the announcement, McTaggart declined to offer details of the inappropriate behavior Keillor had supposedly engaged in, and reportedly told employees at an off-the-record meeting in December that he alone, among staff of American Public Media Group, MPR's parent company, knew the content of the allegations against Keillor.

McTaggart said specifics had been shared only with lawyers — "MPR retained an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation of the allegations," the company said in its Nov. 29 statement — and a committee of APMG Board members. The company added that "there are no similar allegations involving other staff," and McTaggart said Tuesday the external investigation is "substantially complete."

On the day the news broke, Nov. 29, 2017, Keillor told the Star Tribune that he had placed a consoling hand on a colleague's bare back. "I meant to pat her back after she told me about her unhappiness and her shirt was open and my hand went up it about six inches. She recoiled. I apologized," Keillor wrote.

In emails to MPR News, Keillor also claimed that Minnesota Public Radio's decision to sever ties with his companies resulted from an extortion scheme by an ex-employee. He suggested that the person had been fired and rebuffed in his demand for a generous severance payment, then solicited a former Prairie Home colleague to allege inappropriate behavior.

"This is an extortion scheme and McTaggart gave in to it," Keillor wrote. "It's just about that simple."

McTaggart said Tuesday he rejects that idea. "I certainly don't accept the premise of extortion or blackmail," he said. "That has nothing to do with this."

What it has everything to do with, McTaggart said, is power.

"We hold our leaders and people in power to a really high standard," he said. "Leaders and people in power determine livelihood. We determine your career, whether you have a job or don't have a job, what your compensation is going to be. And there's a pretty clear set of policies that have guided our decision-making about what's appropriate."

The revelations add context to an MPR News investigation into Keillor and his pattern of troubling incidents and workplace relationships.

In scores of interviews with former staff members of The Writer's Almanac, Prairie Home and at Keillor's St. Paul bookstore, MPR News reporters were unable to verify the story of Keillor putting his hand on a woman's back, or his claim of extortion. But there are many who describe other troubling incidents or relationships.

MPR News has learned in its reporting that over roughly the past decade, Keillor had at least two romantic relationships with women in workplaces that he led, according to three people with direct knowledge of the encounters and four former colleagues who said Keillor's affairs were open secrets in the office.

Those relationships were consensual, colleagues say, but not without harm due to the power dynamic.

One of those women in 2009 was offered a $16,000 check from Keillor's Prairie Home Productions, along with a proposed confidentiality agreement and a new work contract. The woman never cashed the check, and she didn't sign the non-disclosure agreement or the contract.

A friend in whom the woman confided at the time of the affair told MPR News that Keillor seemed to punish and reward her at work based on how they were getting along in private. The friend said the woman suffered financial and professional consequences from her relationship with Keillor.

"The minutiae of whether he had affairs — that's none of my business," said the friend, who asked that her name be withheld because publishing it could expose the subordinate's identity.

"The business that is mine is how it affected these women in their careers. With my friend, it took out a big chunk of her drive. The thing that's horrible is the impediment it became to her as she was trying to do her job and make a living."

Many individuals, including female collaborators spanning a range of ages, said they admired and respected Keillor.

They also were baffled by the notion that Keillor, whose social awkwardness is legendary, could have crossed professional bounds with women.

Francesca Caviglia, who worked as an assistant for Prairie Home Productions after graduating from St. Olaf College, remembers interviewing for the job at Keillor's St. Paul home, where Keillor's wife and daughter also welcomed her. Caviglia said Keillor answered the door in a dress shirt, pair of slacks and red socks.

"My initial impression was that his persona matched the character I had heard on the radio," said Caviglia, who grew up in New England listening to Prairie Home in her kitchen with her parents. "He's sort of a little aloof and detached. He doesn't make a lot of eye contact or exchange small talk."

When Keillor was in the office, she remembers him roaming the halls, singing under his breath and stopping in the doorways of his staff to drop his next big idea.

"I always thought maybe he was writing in his head," Caviglia said. "There are times when he can come off as rude or brisk. He says what he needs to say, asks what he needs to ask you, and then moves on his way."

But she's unsettled by the notion that Keillor may have acted in a way that would have justified what she considers MPR's quick dismissal of him.

"It's confusing to me that there's anything that happened that would warrant that type of response. I never got that impression from him or anyone else on the staff," Caviglia said. "It was an odd time in my life, it was my first job out of school, and I have mixed memories about the stress of that time. But overall, the people — and Garrison included — I only have positive memories of."

When Amanda Stanton handled marketing for Prairie Home Productions from 2003 to 2006, she said, Keillor was usually holed up in the office, lost in thought with a notepad or book in hand. And despite his shyness, the boss she knew showed concern for all his staff.

"He was wonderful in the sense that he treated men and women very much the same," Stanton said. "There was so much respect in the way he worked with his male and female producers."

When Stanton wanted to return to work from maternity leave after giving birth to twins, Keillor insisted she bring the babies and their nanny with her to the office. He allowed her to set up a room next to his office, replete with a baby gate at the door, where the infants could play and be close to their mother over the next several months.

Stanton describes the work culture as a "respectful family atmosphere." She can't reconcile the allegations of inappropriate behavior with the man she calls the "most reserved boss I have ever worked for."

On the show, Keillor often sang duets with younger female musicians, including Andra Suchy. On the day MPR's split with Keillor was announced, she shared her impressions of Keillor on her Facebook page:

"Please don't ask me anything about that. You know what I mean," she wrote. "I know him to be a genius with a kind and tender heart who genuinely cares for a great many people (his family first and foremost)...and very, very funny."

Sue Scott, a core member of the cast of actors who worked on Prairie Home, said MPR needs to be more forthcoming about its reasons for cutting Keillor off. She questions how McTaggart could have arrived at that decision before the company's investigation had even concluded.

And because he was implicated on the same day as Matt Lauer, who was fired by NBC after accusations of severe sexual misconduct, the question of what Keillor did was left to the worst of the public's imagination, said Scott, who worked on the show for 24 years. She says people are wrongly conflating "inappropriate behavior" with "sexual predator."

"Everybody needs their day in court, and Garrison needs his day in court," said Scott, who added she has pressed MPR leadership for more answers. "Of course, people are thinking of the worst. That's why we need perspective here."

A lawsuit
No one who spoke to MPR News, not even those who found Keillor's behavior to be improper over the years, likened it to that of Lauer or Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

But concerns about Keillor's interactions with women and claims that he had abused his power surfaced nearly two decades ago. These early allegations stemmed not from unwelcome advances, but from accusations that he treated women unfairly.

In 1999, a woman fired from Minnesota Public Radio after three years working on The Writer's Almanac sued MPR in federal court, claiming age, sex and retaliation discrimination.

Patricia McFadden, then 41, alleged that MPR terminated her at Keillor's request, falsely stated that her firing was due to "restructuring," and replaced her with a younger woman.

In her lawsuit, McFadden claimed she and other women who worked on the show were subject to a "pattern and practice of abusive conduct" by Keillor that included "hostile and demeaning" emails and memos. McFadden also claimed that she performed the work of a producer, but her position was titled "coordinator," and she was paid only for a coordinator's work. She said male employees at MPR were "not subjected to such disparities in pay and position title."

In a recent interview with MPR News at her St. Paul home, McFadden, 60, said her job involved researching literary history to find notable events about writers to feature on the daily program, writing radio scripts for Keillor and finding new poetry.

She found the task interesting and rewarding, but said Keillor seemed to take delight in disparaging her work, often crumpling up scripts in a dramatic fashion to humiliate her.

"He would complain that there were too many women," McFadden said. "He didn't want too many female poets or authors to be highlighted. He wanted to know if I was using some kind of 'women's calendar' because there seemed to be too many women in this week's Writer's Almanac."

McFadden said she was not the victim of any overt sexual harassment by Keillor, but she and her female colleagues bore the brunt of his bullying and suffered the most from his mercurial management style.

Keillor often refused to inform McFadden and her female co-workers of his schedule and would show up hours late for his weekly recording sessions, she said, making an intense production schedule even more challenging. In these instances, McFadden said, Keillor would typically apologize to the men on the crew while ignoring the women.

Eventually, she'd had enough, and complained to MPR management. In 1998, after McFadden had worked at The Writer's Almanac for nearly three years, her supervisor abruptly informed her that her job was being eliminated because of restructuring. But McFadden said in her lawsuit that MPR actually replaced her with a younger woman. MPR denied the allegation in court filings.

Angered by her treatment and without recourse inside the company, McFadden sued MPR in federal court. McFadden's attorney said the case was resolved before trial in 1999, but did not go into further detail. Typically, such cases are settled out of court. For her part, McFadden said that suing MPR was never about the money.

"I really didn't want a settlement of any financial sum," McFadden said. "All I wanted was to continue working as a producer at MPR. All I was looking for was a position in another area as a producer, and that they were unwilling to do."

But since the revelation last October of sexual assault allegations against film producer Weinstein and the #metoo movement it reignited, McFadden said, it's important for men in positions of power to be held accountable for their actions.

"I think people who have power and influence and good fortune have more responsibility to behave well than anybody," she said. "And it should not be an excuse to behave badly and to treat others so poorly, especially women."

A judge sealed the documents related to McFadden's case soon after she filed it. Her allegations about Keillor remained hidden from public view until 2010, when then-Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis ordered them unsealed as part of a routine review of old cases.

'A catch-22'
When Liz Fleischman was in her mid-20s, she, too, worked as a producer for The Writer's Almanac. She tells an almost identical account of how Keillor "kind of violently" crumpled up papers and slammed them into the garbage can to show his dissatisfaction with her work.

"I didn't take it that personally," she recalled. "But I remember telling my roommates what had happened, and they said, 'He did what? You shouldn't be treated like that.'"
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Lots more at the link.

Tererune · Jan 25, 2018

Dayton3 said: ↑

Vice President Mike Pence's policy of avoiding being alone with a woman unrelated to him is looking better and better.
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In this case I would have to agree. Being his position should have a certain amount of transparency not being one on one might be a good policy over all for politicians. Maybe it is good policy for professionals too. You are most likely on a team of people why wouldn't they all benefit from the discussion?

Tererune · Jan 25, 2018

14thDoctor said: ↑

Quest said: ↑

14thDoctor said: ↑

Quest said: ↑

Based on the description I read, this seems like a pretty harmless accident with no improper intent. We need to evaluate each accusation on its own merits, and not get caught up in a feeding frenzy.
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I get the impression some employers and businesses might be using this trend as an excuse to dump people that have overstayed their welcome.
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That might be it, but I’m more inclined to put it down to cowardice. Employers are gun-shy and starting to overreact.
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Meanwhile, wife abuser Johnny Depp gets to be in the new Harry Potter series, Mel Gibson is the middle of his comeback with Neighbors 2, and Bill Clinton is still more beloved than Hillary. :/
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Johnny Depp abuses his wife?

For certain people I am going to say it should be public knowledge and maybe I will watch their movies as long as there is divorce and anyone involved with them knows what they do. In the case of assault there would also be the punishment done. I would say get racketeering charges involved on anyone who conspires with someone like that to harm other actors careers and charge them with the same crimes so no one looks the other way. But I somewhat forgive people. Chuck Norris is a right wing asshole, but I would watch him do an action movie. I would prefer someone else, but I am not going to stop watching expendables because of him. Also some of chuck's movies could be inspiring to a person who feels picked on.

I know katt Williams is a bit of a sexist pompous ass, but he is funny and I enjoy some of his material. I just know I would not bring him near any woman who is fragile, and any woman who isn't knows I am fine with her defending herself and give him shit back. You are not expected to like him. I do have to say he does make an ass out of himself offstage a lot. But that is his problem.

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