Tegna CEO Stays On Hot Seat

Tegna’s CEO Dave Lougee continues to be taking heat after a proposed Tegna board member outed him over an incident that happened back in 2014.

Adonis Hoffman, a media attorney, consultant and former official at the Federal Communications Commission, indicated on March 3 that he will no longer be a candidate for the board, according to a statement from him that was sent to the Tegna board.

He pointed to possible conflicts of interest and to an incident involving Tegna’s CEO Dave Lougee.

Hoffman, who is Black, also said in a statement that he was disturbed by an interaction that happened in 2014.

He says that he and Lougee were seated at the same table at an industry event and spoke over lunch; afterward, Lougee mistook Hoffman for a valet, deeply offending Hoffman.

Lougee apologized for the incident and Hoffman followed up with a letter to the Tegna boss.

In the letter sent to Lougee, Hoffman said he was not offended by the original incident and accepted the apology. “Coming from a working class family where my grandparents were domestic workers, I consider being a valet to be an honorable job,” he wrote. “What I took issue with was your failure to disclose, or accept any responsibility for, your action until it was made public last week. You even attempted to suppress the mentioning of the incident itself by offering to pay me at the time (I sincerely hope you were joking).”

He continued, “You are the CEO of a major media company that touches and influences the lives of millions of Americans. As such, I am deeply concerned about your capacity to perceive a person of color as anything other than invisible, insignificant or in service to you. This lack of awareness and sentience is what experts today call ‘unconscious bias.'”

One of Tegna’s biggest shareholders — hedge fund Standard General — is calling for a shakeup of the board and had initially nominated Hoffman for a seat.

H/T Deadline