2020 Grammy Awards
Jan 21, 2020 16:27:02 GMT -5
Post by shayonce on Jan 21, 2020 16:27:02 GMT -5
THE DUGAN SAGA: THE LATEST
The Deborah Dugan saga continues to unfold.
Recording Academy interim President/CEO Harvey Mason Jr., in a 1/20 letter to members, described an attorneyβs letter outlining βdetailed and serious allegations of a βtoxic and intolerableβ and βabusive and bullyingβ environment created by Ms. Dugan towards the staff.β These charges, he explained, led to Duganβs being placed on administrative leave.
But our sources tell us that the straw that broke the camelβs backβand led to Duganβs sudden ouster as Recording Academy boss on 1/17βwas her defiance of the Grammy Board in her push for change in nominations and voting.
It appears that when she saw that, except for desired improvements in diversity outlined in the report from Tina Tchenβs task force, the Board was going to prevent the kind of systemic change she sought to implement, Dugan realized the writing was on the wall and submitted her findings to HR.
Itβs said that the parties are currently negotiating a settlement, and that Duganβs team (headed by attorney Bryan Freedman of Freedman + Taitelman LLP, with co-counsel Douglas Wigdor joining more recently) is asking for a figure north of $10m. An Academy source told Billboardβs Melinda Newman that Team Dugan wanted $22m; sources told Variety that figure is "outrageous" and "completely untrue."
Itβs expected that an agreement will be hammered out, but not before more pre-Grammy bombshells drop.
The complaint against her came from Claudine Little, longtime assistant to Duganβs predecessor, Neil Portnow. Sources say Little is now represented by Patty Glazer of Glaser Weil Fink Howard Avchen & Shapiro LLPβwho previously served as counsel for Harvey Weinstein, among others.
βI serve at the pleasure of the Board,β Dugan told us several weeks earlier. Clearly her efforts, particularly in looking under the hood as regards voting, incurred their displeasure, as she challenged the locus of power in the organization. When she bucked their agenda, it seems, they told her it was their way or the highway. Her now-infamous memoβwhich would seem to have been submitted when she concluded that the end of tenure was nighβput her anti-corruption agenda on the record.
Dugan told us that with one exception, the board was prepared to implement all the recommendations in Tchenβs reportβmost of which were to do with greater diversity as regards gender and people of color in the organization and voting membership. She also told us that Portnow had 16 direct reports, all of them men, adding that she asked him how, in his decade-and-a-half in the job, he hadnβt been able to find one woman.
The one recommendation at which the Board balked involved changes to improve transparency and accountability in the Grammy nominations and voting process, to wit:
The Academy should consider implementing a ranked choice voting system to determine Grammy nominees and winners in General Field categories (Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist).
We discussed this issue multiple times with Dugan, and she was deeply concerned about it.
The doings on the Nashville committee, in particular, sparked inquiry from Duganβwho wanted to know why breakout artists like Maren Morris were snubbed in the country categories, in favor of projects that had had far less impact. Dugan was particularly appalled by the notionβwhich her investigation seemed to bear outβthat Morrisβ decision to do a Playboy feature might have played a role in her being denied these nominations.
Itβs been widely reported that Duganβs recommendations included hiring in-house legal counsel to reduce Grammyβs legal fees. Variety noted that $15m was paid out to Greenberg Traurig and Proskauer Rose from 2013-17, and another cited $3m to both firms for fiscal 2018, with another $3.7m claimed for βunspecified legal fees.β She also addressed alleged βfinancial mismanagement.β (It remains unclear who leaked the content of Duganβs memo to The New York Times; Masonβs letter also declares: βIβm deeply disturbed and saddened by the βleaksβ and misinformation, which are fueling a press campaign designed to create leverage against the Academy for personal gain.β)
But again, itβs becoming clear that Duganβs attempt to clean up the rot around votingβwhich involved hacking through a massive tangle of agendas and corruption that had grown up since the Secret Committees were establishedβwas her undoing in Grammyland.
Readers of this publication know that we have been clamoring for years for this rot to be addressed.
Over the course of several meetings with Dugan, we at HITS became convinced that she represented hope for substantive change at the Academy. We believed and continue to believe her to be a person of integrity and compassion. Was she tough and uncompromising in the face of incompetence? Undoubtedly.
Sheβs demonstrated that integrity throughout her career, not only in her eight impeccable years running Bonoβs charity, (RED), but earlier onβsuch as when she took a $70,000 cut in pay (βwhen I had student loans,β she told us) to move from a cushy gig as a Wall Street lawyer to run legal services at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.
The anger around Duganβs forced exit among womenβin the biz and pop culture at largeβis palpable.
The chorus in support of her has ALSO included Chuck D of Public Enemy, whose distrust of Grammyland had been overcome by her entreaties; sponsor Americas Champagne Billecart-Salmon, whose VP Geoffrey Loisel sang her praises as βa person with high ethical standardsβ in announcing the end of the companyβs Grammy sponsorship; Gabrielle Union and Megyn Kelly. Grammy host Alicia Keys is said to be struggling with the situation, though she has thus far remained on board.
Claims of threats against Dugan, allegedly necessitating a security detail, have further solidified the support mentioned above.
After Neil Portnowβs βstep upβ comments, several insiders have come forward to tell us, the Grammy powers knew they needed to improve the optics of the organization. Their hope was to have a reform campaign that appeared to tackle the diversity problem, and putting a female face on that campaign was optimal. The last thing the rulers of Grammyland wanted, these insiders say, was someone snooping around their golden goose, the awardsβespecially the cronyism of the Secret Committees. But with Dugan, thatβs what they got.
hitsdailydouble.com/news&id=319608&title=THE-DUGAN-SAGA%3A-THE-LATEST
+
Grammy's new CEO Mail.
hitsdailydouble.com/news&id=319607&title=A-LETTER-FROM-HARVEY
The Deborah Dugan saga continues to unfold.
Recording Academy interim President/CEO Harvey Mason Jr., in a 1/20 letter to members, described an attorneyβs letter outlining βdetailed and serious allegations of a βtoxic and intolerableβ and βabusive and bullyingβ environment created by Ms. Dugan towards the staff.β These charges, he explained, led to Duganβs being placed on administrative leave.
But our sources tell us that the straw that broke the camelβs backβand led to Duganβs sudden ouster as Recording Academy boss on 1/17βwas her defiance of the Grammy Board in her push for change in nominations and voting.
It appears that when she saw that, except for desired improvements in diversity outlined in the report from Tina Tchenβs task force, the Board was going to prevent the kind of systemic change she sought to implement, Dugan realized the writing was on the wall and submitted her findings to HR.
Itβs said that the parties are currently negotiating a settlement, and that Duganβs team (headed by attorney Bryan Freedman of Freedman + Taitelman LLP, with co-counsel Douglas Wigdor joining more recently) is asking for a figure north of $10m. An Academy source told Billboardβs Melinda Newman that Team Dugan wanted $22m; sources told Variety that figure is "outrageous" and "completely untrue."
Itβs expected that an agreement will be hammered out, but not before more pre-Grammy bombshells drop.
The complaint against her came from Claudine Little, longtime assistant to Duganβs predecessor, Neil Portnow. Sources say Little is now represented by Patty Glazer of Glaser Weil Fink Howard Avchen & Shapiro LLPβwho previously served as counsel for Harvey Weinstein, among others.
βI serve at the pleasure of the Board,β Dugan told us several weeks earlier. Clearly her efforts, particularly in looking under the hood as regards voting, incurred their displeasure, as she challenged the locus of power in the organization. When she bucked their agenda, it seems, they told her it was their way or the highway. Her now-infamous memoβwhich would seem to have been submitted when she concluded that the end of tenure was nighβput her anti-corruption agenda on the record.
Dugan told us that with one exception, the board was prepared to implement all the recommendations in Tchenβs reportβmost of which were to do with greater diversity as regards gender and people of color in the organization and voting membership. She also told us that Portnow had 16 direct reports, all of them men, adding that she asked him how, in his decade-and-a-half in the job, he hadnβt been able to find one woman.
The one recommendation at which the Board balked involved changes to improve transparency and accountability in the Grammy nominations and voting process, to wit:
The Academy should consider implementing a ranked choice voting system to determine Grammy nominees and winners in General Field categories (Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist).
We discussed this issue multiple times with Dugan, and she was deeply concerned about it.
The doings on the Nashville committee, in particular, sparked inquiry from Duganβwho wanted to know why breakout artists like Maren Morris were snubbed in the country categories, in favor of projects that had had far less impact. Dugan was particularly appalled by the notionβwhich her investigation seemed to bear outβthat Morrisβ decision to do a Playboy feature might have played a role in her being denied these nominations.
Itβs been widely reported that Duganβs recommendations included hiring in-house legal counsel to reduce Grammyβs legal fees. Variety noted that $15m was paid out to Greenberg Traurig and Proskauer Rose from 2013-17, and another cited $3m to both firms for fiscal 2018, with another $3.7m claimed for βunspecified legal fees.β She also addressed alleged βfinancial mismanagement.β (It remains unclear who leaked the content of Duganβs memo to The New York Times; Masonβs letter also declares: βIβm deeply disturbed and saddened by the βleaksβ and misinformation, which are fueling a press campaign designed to create leverage against the Academy for personal gain.β)
But again, itβs becoming clear that Duganβs attempt to clean up the rot around votingβwhich involved hacking through a massive tangle of agendas and corruption that had grown up since the Secret Committees were establishedβwas her undoing in Grammyland.
Readers of this publication know that we have been clamoring for years for this rot to be addressed.
Over the course of several meetings with Dugan, we at HITS became convinced that she represented hope for substantive change at the Academy. We believed and continue to believe her to be a person of integrity and compassion. Was she tough and uncompromising in the face of incompetence? Undoubtedly.
Sheβs demonstrated that integrity throughout her career, not only in her eight impeccable years running Bonoβs charity, (RED), but earlier onβsuch as when she took a $70,000 cut in pay (βwhen I had student loans,β she told us) to move from a cushy gig as a Wall Street lawyer to run legal services at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.
The anger around Duganβs forced exit among womenβin the biz and pop culture at largeβis palpable.
The chorus in support of her has ALSO included Chuck D of Public Enemy, whose distrust of Grammyland had been overcome by her entreaties; sponsor Americas Champagne Billecart-Salmon, whose VP Geoffrey Loisel sang her praises as βa person with high ethical standardsβ in announcing the end of the companyβs Grammy sponsorship; Gabrielle Union and Megyn Kelly. Grammy host Alicia Keys is said to be struggling with the situation, though she has thus far remained on board.
Claims of threats against Dugan, allegedly necessitating a security detail, have further solidified the support mentioned above.
After Neil Portnowβs βstep upβ comments, several insiders have come forward to tell us, the Grammy powers knew they needed to improve the optics of the organization. Their hope was to have a reform campaign that appeared to tackle the diversity problem, and putting a female face on that campaign was optimal. The last thing the rulers of Grammyland wanted, these insiders say, was someone snooping around their golden goose, the awardsβespecially the cronyism of the Secret Committees. But with Dugan, thatβs what they got.
hitsdailydouble.com/news&id=319608&title=THE-DUGAN-SAGA%3A-THE-LATEST
+
Grammy's new CEO Mail.
hitsdailydouble.com/news&id=319607&title=A-LETTER-FROM-HARVEY
Heavy on the unless.