After Less Than a Month on the Job, Johnny Depp's Lawyer Camille Vasquez is Getting Mean Girled by Her Coworkers
STEVE HELBER. Getty Images.Times are tough all over in the media landscape. Particularly when it comes to broadcast news. The business model has changed. In ever-increasing numbers the public is no longer getting their information from TV news, for a number of reasons. Firstly, according to opinion polls people feel they've been lied to about major aspects of events like the Covid pandemic and no longer trust the ones who fed them the narrative. Second, due to the rise of alternate sources of information available 24/7 on places like YouTube, Substack, and others.
As such, employees at the TV networks and news websites are being laid off in numbers few industries have seen in years. It's like the days of Stalin's purges among the journo class. It's getting so bad that the world's leading source of clickbait Buzzfeed is pink-slipping workers in favor of letting ChatGPT write their stupid listicles and assorted other useless content.
Even media giant NBC hasn't been immune from the new realities of their business model. So in an effort to improve their situation, just after the New Year they did a bit of stunt casting with someone who became famous in the Old Year:
You can't argue with the logic. News reporting absolutely requires solid analysis by legal experts. Attorney Vasquez was one of the most recognizable and celebrated news figures of 2022. She was the breakout star of the most high profile trial in years. One that was situated right at the intersection of Celebrity, Sex, Scandal, Personal Drama, and Pooped Beds. And just as importantly, she won the case for her client. Any network probably would have hired her even if she took the L. But it certainly helps you brand to fill the seats around your studio desk with winners. If NBC hadn't snatched her up, any of a half dozen of their biggest competitors would have. In a Cocaine Bear heartbeat.
But rather than welcome Atty. Vasquez to the team and hope she brings some of that winning energy with her, he coworkers have just gotten their claws out:
Source - Camille Vasquez is not sitting at the cool kids’ table at NBC’s cafeteria, according to a report.
The celebrity attorney, who gained global recognition last year for successfully representing Johnny Depp in his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, is being given the cold shoulder by fellow staffers, Radar Online reports.
Vasquez was hired as an on-air legal analyst on NBC News but is seemingly not gelling too well with her co-workers after joining the network as it planned to hit staff with a massive layoff.
“Poor Camille arrived at precisely the wrong time,” a source told the outlet. “The week she arrived, double digits of workers were fired — yet NBC found the money to hire a 38-year-old beauty queen.”
Quick pause while I interject here:
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The report claims staffers were left baffled at how the network managed to hire the attorney when it let a lot of employees go recently. NBC cut around 75 jobs during January layoffs, according to the Wrap.
“Camille wouldn’t have been booked as a guest before working for Johnny Depp, and now she’s on the staff, and folks around the office are mad,” the insider added.
Get a load of these "folks around the office." Resentful, much? Camille wouldn't have been booked as a guest before working for Johnny Depp, huh? Is that how you're going to play this? Well here's a reality check. Winners get hired. Look around at the other TV networks. Do you think David Ortiz would be the biggest personality on MLB Network if he kept DHing for the Twins and didn't carry the Red Sox to three World Series titles? Would Fox be paying Tom Brady $35 million a year if he kept backing up Drew Bledsoe or signed with the Expos? Would Michael Strahan be on TV about 10 hours a day if didn't walk off the field a winner in the Super Bowl That Shall Not Be Named Part I? George Stephanopolous is over at ABC getting exclusive interviews with Alec Baldwin precisely because he helped Bill Clinton get elected twice. Do these "folks" think he'd have gotten that gig if he'd spent the '90s guiding some nobody to a loss in the Wyoming Attorney General's race?
TV is a meritocracy, but the merit doesn't just come from where you got your journo degree. The merit comes from getting eyeballs to stay on a screen through the ads for car insurance and depression meds that keep the lights on in the office. The very office where these worthless "staffers" seem to have plenty of time to backstab someone the public wants to hear from. As far as the "38 year old beauty queen" dig, these people do realize they work in television, right? The word "vision" is right in the title because looks matter. Male or female, young or old, you're in front of the camera in part because nobody wants to get their information from someone who looks like they should be working in a Renaissance Parisian bell tower.
But focusing on Camille Vasquez looks - her objectively attractive, alluring looks - instead of her legal acumen is exactly the sort of petty, jealous bullshit that insecure people have been using to discredit smart, accomplished professionals forever. (Believe me, I've been accused of using my rugged handsomeness to get ahead too. So I can relate.
So you keep doing your job, Counselor. Don't let the bastards drag you down, because you're worth 100 of them. Besides, if NBC News ever did let you go, there are plenty of other rich, famous weirdos who need a good lawyer. And I'm sure they pay better.