In 1990, “Superior Court” was cancelled, and Levin took a reporting job with NBC’s Los Angeles affiliate. He shared desk space with another general-assignment reporter, Kent Shocknek, who later became the anchor of the morning newscast. At the time, Shocknek told me, the station had more reporters than cameramen; Levin, he recalled, perfected “a great trick” to secure a crew, “regardless of the merit of his story.” Shocknek explained, “He would be on the phone, setting up an appointment, and then he would slam the phone down, and yell, ‘I got it! This is the guy! We have to get him before he leaves!’ I can’t tell you how many times I had to wait for a crew because Harvey convinced the dispatcher that he had the story of the year, every single day.”
…“Harvey has no problem publicly shaming you,” a former assignment-desk producer told me. “He used to say, to all of us, ‘My fucking dogs are smarter than you!’ You become like a battered child. He beats you down, but the second you’re about to say, ‘Screw this place,’ he gives you a compliment, and you live for that.” The former TMZ photographer recounted that Levin once screamed, “I could get a monkey to do your job!” and, on another occasion, “Do you want me to draw this out in crayons for you fucking idiots?” The former news reporter said that, on one occasion, Levin compared his staff to “a roomful of handicapped people.” Rory Waltzer, another former cameraman, told me, “Harvey Levin would have been a great dictator: he is charming enough so that you want to follow him, but terrifying enough so that you don’t want to fail.”
…Numerous former employees confessed to going on medication to manage workplace anxiety. “Harvey is ruthless,” Simon Cardoza, the former cameraman, said. “He is able to treat people like shit because everybody wants to be near the limelight.”
