“Today” show executive producer Jim Bell’s aggressive campaign yesterday to take the heat off Matt Lauer for his morning show’s missteps — including firing Ann Curry — is being dubbed in TV circles as “the Yom Kippur attack.” And sources tell us that Bell’s campaign to take responsibility for axing Curry — saying that Lauer “really should not bear any of the blame” — was engineered by Lauer himself. “It was definitely not Matt’s call,” Bell proclaimed in an interview about Curry’s dramatic public execution that coincided with a “Today” ratings decline. “[Matt] is the host and does not have management responsibility. It was not his call. That was my call.” But a source tells us that Bell reached out to journos this week because, “Matt wanted Jim to do it. Matt was sick of being the punching bag.” We recently reported “Today” staffers have seen Lauer turn into an “anchor animal” who’s been calling the shots amid the show’s ratings crunch, and that he’s become increasingly controlling behind the scenes (which Bell said was “patently false”). “Matt feels that Jim didn’t take accountability for all the ratings drama at ‘Today.’ [Jim] was away at the Olympics, getting all the glory,” a source told us yesterday. “So Lauer forced Jim to stand in the firing line. Matt wanted Jim to take responsibility.” Bell also took the opportunity to play down rumors that he’s moving on up from “Today” to a role at NBC sports, saying in an interview, “This is the best job in the world.” But a network insider insists to us that Bell could be gone within the month, and another published report yesterday wondered whether the “Yom Kippur attack” interviews would mark his swan song. Bell told us last night: “This is exactly the kind of false story that led me to do these interviews in the first place.”
‘Today’ EP Jim Bell tries to take the heat off Matt Lauer in ‘Yom Kippur’ attack
