Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Jodie Canter and Megan Twoey are the New York Times
Speaker 1: reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein story for five months.
Speaker 1: Perpetually in danger of losing the scoop, they cultivated and
Speaker 1: cajoled sources ranging from the Weinstein's accountant to Ashley Judd.
Speaker 1: The article that emerged on October five, two thousand seventeen,
Speaker 1: was a level headed and impeccably sourced expose whose effects
Speaker 1: continue to be felt around the world. Cantor and Towey
Speaker 1: documented twenty five years of sexual abuse, harassment, and exploitation
Speaker 1: by one of the most important producers in the history
Speaker 1: of Hollywood. The story put a definitive end to his
Speaker 1: career and his company. It has also shaken the lives
Speaker 1: of some those who supported and defended him, like lawyer
Speaker 1: Lisa Bloom, who until last year had followed the path
Speaker 1: of her feminist mother, Gloria Allread in representing victims. And
Speaker 1: just as clearly, the reporters documented the loose network of
Speaker 1: business and creative interests that enabled rape, harassment, and casting
Speaker 1: couch coercion. They revealed to America, the culture in Hollywood
Speaker 1: that knew about all of this and disapproved, but expected
Speaker 1: individual women victimized and isolated to bear the burden of
Speaker 1: exposing the powerful men who humiliated them themselves. But before
Speaker 1: any of the fallout, Jodi Canter and Megan Tooey had
Speaker 1: to source up. One of the first daunting casks was
Speaker 1: to try to get in touch with these famous actresses.
Speaker 1: But Megan and I were like, we don't know any actresses,
Speaker 1: you know, and getting We're sitting there saying, Okay, how
Speaker 1: do you get you know, Ashley Judge's phone? Actually it
Speaker 1: was the path to actually Judge. You can well, that
Speaker 1: one was pretty easy because Nick Kristof knew her and
Speaker 1: Christof the opinion columnist at the Times. But we felt
Speaker 1: strongly that we could not go through publicists or agents
Speaker 1: because their gatekeepers, they're just going to shut everything down.
Speaker 1: We wanted to reach the actresses directly, and and so
Speaker 1: the questions were, you know, how do you reach these people,
Speaker 1: And even if you get them on the phone, what
Speaker 1: are you going to say in the first forty five
Speaker 1: seconds of that phone conversation to earn some trust and
Speaker 1: keep the conversation going. So Actually, that's sort of the
Speaker 1: origin of my partnership with Megan, because Megan was on
Speaker 1: maternity leave, and but she had been a sex crimes
Speaker 1: reporter for a long time, and she had done the
Speaker 1: reporting one and Donald Trump and women. At the time,
Speaker 1: I worked at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, I worked at
Speaker 1: the Chicago Triman, and I've been at the Times a
Speaker 1: year and a half. Um I came into The Times
Speaker 1: in two thousand and sixteen to join the team that
Speaker 1: was doing coverage of the two thousand and sixteen presidential race.
Speaker 1: So I had done these stories about Trump and his
Speaker 1: treatment of women, and after he was elected, had been
Speaker 1: part of the coverage of his when we were first
Speaker 1: looking at the ties between him and Russia. UM So,
Speaker 1: I had been doing that work up until the March
Speaker 1: of two thousand seventeen, when I had a baby and
Speaker 1: went on maternity leave. And so it was while I
Speaker 1: was on maternity leave that Jody started the wine scene
Speaker 1: investigation and sort of called me. We didn't even know
Speaker 1: each other, and she called me and said, I know
Speaker 1: you've done stories in the past about victims of sex crimes,
Speaker 1: and I know you did reporting with some of the
Speaker 1: women who were who accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Do
Speaker 1: you have any suggestions of of you know, how how
Speaker 1: you know what to say when you're knocking on these
Speaker 1: doors and picking up the phone and calling people and
Speaker 1: to asking them to open up about these painful experiences
Speaker 1: in their past. So when Megan and I were on
Speaker 1: the phone, uh, she suggested a kind of argument that
Speaker 1: she had used with victims in the past, which is
Speaker 1: to say to them very early in the conversation, look,
Speaker 1: I can't change what's happened to you in the past,
Speaker 1: but if we work together, maybe we can take the
Speaker 1: pain that you experienced and put it to some constructive
Speaker 1: purpose will help other people. And when Megan said that,
Speaker 1: it was like something clicked for me because it's the
Speaker 1: best reason to talk to a journalist. And also, so
Speaker 1: many people fear that talking to a journalist is a
Speaker 1: bad thing, like oh, it's traitorous, or you're a tattle tale,
Speaker 1: or you're complaining or whatever. And what we like to
Speaker 1: do is redefine it as a more noble thing. You
Speaker 1: are doing this to have a constructive impact on society.
Speaker 1: It is. It may be very difficult, but our goal
Speaker 1: is to do something that you can eventually feel very
Speaker 1: proud of and so that was really that was really
Speaker 1: the beginning of our beginning of our partnership. In your book,
Speaker 1: you're write about Lisa Bloom. This is all Red's daughter.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering someone like that, What does she think she's doing.
Speaker 1: Does she go to bed every night and sit there
Speaker 1: and go, ah, we're pulling a fast one and everyone
Speaker 1: as I'm doing all this work for Harvey? What does
Speaker 1: she think she's doing? Something up? What does she tell herself?
Speaker 1: Do you think I mean, maybe there will be a
Speaker 1: day where Lisa Bloom comes into a studio and sits
Speaker 1: down and opens up her art and tells us what
Speaker 1: she's been thinking and feeling and why report and why
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, what we can tell you is
Speaker 1: that she did something remarkable in two thousand sixteen. She
Speaker 1: has been one of the most prominent feminist attorneys in
Speaker 1: the country, worked with countless victims of sexual harassment and
Speaker 1: sexual assault, and in two thousand sixteen crossed over to
Speaker 1: the other side. Why do you think she has said
Speaker 1: that she thought that he only engaged in inappropriate comments
Speaker 1: towards women, and that she wanted to help him go
Speaker 1: work with him to help him apologize. You know, we
Speaker 1: obtained in the course of the reporting for this book,
Speaker 1: these confidential records that showed she had much deeper knowledge
Speaker 1: of the serious allegations against him, and that she played
Speaker 1: a much darker role. I mean, she was not honest
Speaker 1: about the work she did for him. We've got the
Speaker 1: billing records, the memo in which she spells out all
Speaker 1: the underhanded tactics she's gonna use to help him undermine
Speaker 1: his accusers, and she's basically saying, I'm going to use
Speaker 1: all my experience working with victims and harness that and
Speaker 1: use it with you to work against them. And so
Speaker 1: it was us about money. I mean, what we know
Speaker 1: for sure is that she had done a deal with Weinstein.
Speaker 1: She wanted she had a book that he was going
Speaker 1: to turn into a movie about Trayvon Martin. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't we She has not opened up.
Speaker 1: And when we saw when we sawt comment from her
Speaker 1: for this book, I mean, we wouldn't publish. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we published that memo that she wrote to him spelling
Speaker 1: out exactly what she was going to do for him,
Speaker 1: which really contradicts her public comments about what the role
Speaker 1: that she played and why she went to go work
Speaker 1: for him in its entirety so that readers could see
Speaker 1: for themselves what she was saying in her own words
Speaker 1: and doing at the time. But when we presented her
Speaker 1: with that um she she refused to comment. She said
Speaker 1: that you know, she that she was gonna abide by
Speaker 1: attorney client privilege, is you know, as into the future. Look,
Speaker 1: I think you're asking the right question, which is you've
Speaker 1: got one of the most famous feminist attorneys in the country.
Speaker 1: She's Gloria Alread's daughter. She's been advertising herself as a
Speaker 1: victim's rights attorney and a fighter for women for all
Speaker 1: of these years, and she makes what we know is
Speaker 1: a very intentional decision to cross the line and work
Speaker 1: for Harvey Weinstein. And we know it's intentional because of
Speaker 1: the memo that Megan just described. This is her job
Speaker 1: audition memo, and in it she's saying, I will smear
Speaker 1: on your behalf, I will manipulate on your behalf. So
Speaker 1: the question is what led her over? You know what?
Speaker 1: Did she genuinely not believe the women she represented over
Speaker 1: the years. Was she did she think that Rose McGowan
Speaker 1: was just making it all up? Etcetera, etcetera. So we
Speaker 1: can't look you know, she's not here, we don't have
Speaker 1: a crystal ball, etcetera, etcetera. But here's what we can
Speaker 1: tell you, because this also applies to David Boys, the
Speaker 1: other super lawyer, the renewer, the renowned litigator who did
Speaker 1: Bush v. Gore and help get gay marriage establish. Here's
Speaker 1: the common denominator that Bloom and Boys have in going
Speaker 1: to work for Weinstein. They both wanted to be in
Speaker 1: the movie business. I know Bloom, so blooms, but Bloom
Speaker 1: called me because it's not what it's cracked up to be. Well,
Speaker 1: Bloom writes this book called Suspicion Nation about Trayvon Martin
Speaker 1: and gets very excited because Harvey Weinstein and Jay Z
Speaker 1: option it to turn it into a film. Boys, for
Speaker 1: all of his vast, fast, fast legal success, what does
Speaker 1: he really want to do, at least in part, is
Speaker 1: be in the movies. He's got interests in the movie business.
Speaker 1: His daughter wasn't budding actress and wanted roles. And we
Speaker 1: even obtained an email in which you've got Harvey sort
Speaker 1: of setting her up for a part in one of
Speaker 1: his films. And so I mean, I think so much
Speaker 1: of this story, and this was part of my original
Speaker 1: draw to it is about like, what is the power
Speaker 1: that these movies have on all of us? Right? Because
Speaker 1: it's because that's the way Weinstein got everybody to do
Speaker 1: what he wanted. That was the source of his power,
Speaker 1: not just in luring people like boys and Bloom into
Speaker 1: my magnetic view exactly, but also with the women, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, this was all about work. Look, it's really
Speaker 1: important to remember that there are two categories of women
Speaker 1: essentially that Weinstein allegedly harasses and assaults. One of them actresses.
Speaker 1: The second assistance women who want to be producers, right,
Speaker 1: women who are twenty three years old, and they're so
Speaker 1: excited because they're on their very first day at a
Speaker 1: company like Mirrormax or the Weinstein Company. This is going
Speaker 1: to be their big shot. It's so exciting, there's so
Speaker 1: much potential here. And then boom, Harvey Weinstein walks into
Speaker 1: the room and everything changes. And so this is all
Speaker 1: about the actresses and the assistance. Both. They're coming into
Speaker 1: this with with dreams, with ideas, with ambitions, with hopes,
Speaker 1: and he turns those hopes and ambitions against the women,
Speaker 1: and that has to do also with the power of
Speaker 1: the movie. Is the power of this work? You know,
Speaker 1: what is your ticket into this world? And how can that?
Speaker 1: You know, is your desire for entry into this world
Speaker 1: a kind of vulnerability that can then be turned against you?
Speaker 1: You can? You don't? I mean, I hope I phrase
Speaker 1: this the right way, which is that I want to believe.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming in your work on Earth some things about
Speaker 1: Weinstein that were compelling, seductive, like when people were around him,
Speaker 1: there had to be something about him that facilitated the
Speaker 1: whole event that would happen with some of these people.
Speaker 1: He was a towering figure of accomplishment in the movie business.
Speaker 1: He was a savant who knew everything there is to
Speaker 1: know about every aspect on the deepest level of movie making,
Speaker 1: movie production, movie development, movie distribution. There are very few
Speaker 1: people There are almost none. The only equal Weinstein has
Speaker 1: is Spielberg in terms of knowing everything there is to
Speaker 1: know about developing, casting, sets, everything and most importantle, selling
Speaker 1: that movie and marketing that movie, and that awards matrix
Speaker 1: that he dominated for so long. People thought Weinstein was
Speaker 1: a genius. Well, we certainly witnessed Weinstein in action. We
Speaker 1: interviewed him several times he came into The New York
Speaker 1: Times for sit down interview and he was I think
Speaker 1: that we were able to see in person um that
Speaker 1: this sort of range of this this sort of the
Speaker 1: spectrum of his behavior that he would swing from kind
Speaker 1: of charm and compliments and kind of ingratiating himself and like, well,
Speaker 1: the New York Times, it's the best paper in the world,
Speaker 1: and you know, let me tell you a story about it.
Speaker 1: What a huge fan I am of the New York Times.
Speaker 1: In terms of how he was able to pray on women,
Speaker 1: I think that that is a separate question from how
Speaker 1: he was able to sort of keep people in his
Speaker 1: orbit and maintain his power. That really is one of
Speaker 1: the most important questions is that they were actually people
Speaker 1: who got glimpses of his alleged misconduct over the years,
Speaker 1: and what did they do about it? And and how
Speaker 1: does how can we explain the fact that there were
Speaker 1: so many individuals and institutions, including his own companies, that
Speaker 1: became complicit in his abuse. And what we were able
Speaker 1: to see is that he kind of employed a variety
Speaker 1: of personality traits from from you know, sort of charm
Speaker 1: machine to threatening uh to lashing out, to manipulation, to bullying,
Speaker 1: and he seemed to kind of pull these out of
Speaker 1: his pocket at various times to try to get what
Speaker 1: he had wanted. And I think that that he had
Speaker 1: been able to use that we in our book were
Speaker 1: able to report out, uh this remarkable two years in
Speaker 1: his own company in two thousand fourteen and two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: when there were more and more allegations coming to the
Speaker 1: surface that you know, people high up in the company,
Speaker 1: including his own brother Bob Weinstein, saw he was among
Speaker 1: the people who wanted to do something and wanted to intervene,
Speaker 1: and and Weinstein was really able to use a variety
Speaker 1: of tactics to ultimately shut down these efforts of accountability.
Speaker 1: Reporters Jodie Cantor and Megan Twoey, I'm at like Baldwin
Speaker 1: back now with reporters Jodie cant and Megan Twoey. I've
Speaker 1: never really worked with anyone who has had this strong
Speaker 1: and internal compass, and I think that compass has just
Speaker 1: like pulled us forward again and again and again. I
Speaker 1: think also that Megan is very exacting. God is in
Speaker 1: the details, you know, God is in the details on
Speaker 1: these stories. And I you know, I hope our sources
Speaker 1: feel the same way I do, which is that like
Speaker 1: when I'm in Megan's hands, I just feel like I'm
Speaker 1: working with a like a world class surgeon or something,
Speaker 1: because the level of precision is so incredibly high. I
Speaker 1: feel Megan's incredible compassion and empathy for victims, but like
Speaker 1: kind of wrapped in this rigor. That only makes it
Speaker 1: better because it's not It's not about sitting around and crying,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the role of a psychologist or a friend.
Speaker 1: It's about having the strength and the force to make
Speaker 1: the story really really work and make people feel safe
Speaker 1: through the power and the strength of the journalism. And
Speaker 1: then I think the final thing I would say is
Speaker 1: that I see a relentlessness and an understanding of the
Speaker 1: psychology of how to get people to give you information.
Speaker 1: When this is for Megan, When Jody Canter comes out
Speaker 1: of the bullpen and she said into the mound, what
Speaker 1: are her? What are the better afraid of? What pitches
Speaker 1: does she have in her repertoire, I would say, I
Speaker 1: think that there's one word that comes to mind when
Speaker 1: I when I think of Jody, which is persistance. Um,
Speaker 1: like you know heaven, Like, I sort of pity the
Speaker 1: person who's trying to get between you know, Jody and
Speaker 1: and the information that she's pursuing. And she is just um,
Speaker 1: she's just a total bulldog. And it's no surprise that
Speaker 1: you know, there was there was a there was sort
Speaker 1: of a deep throat figure in the Weinstein investigation. Irwin
Speaker 1: Ryder was in the top orbit of executives by Weinstein
Speaker 1: side for years and ended up actually, over the course
Speaker 1: of a series of secretive meetings with Jodie Cantor, ended
Speaker 1: up providing all this information about the harm that Weinstein
Speaker 1: was doing two women in the company. Ultimately, well, I
Speaker 1: think because he was he was in the hands of
Speaker 1: Jodie Canter. No, no, no, no, that's not true. He
Speaker 1: didn't know because no, excuse me, I'm sorry, No, I will,
Speaker 1: I will, I will correct that this was somebody who
Speaker 1: had seen wrongdoing, had become increasingly concerned about it, had
Speaker 1: tried to do things to hold the boss accountable to
Speaker 1: no avail. And so when Jodie came knocking, was um,
Speaker 1: I think inclined to do something. But the extent to
Speaker 1: which I mean Jody from the first email she sent
Speaker 1: to him, through the meetings that she had with him
Speaker 1: in secret in Tribeca, she was able to ultimately get
Speaker 1: him to not only start to tell her about what
Speaker 1: was going on within the company, but ultimately provide her
Speaker 1: with an internal record, a complaint that had been filed
Speaker 1: as recently as two thousand fifteen that's spelled out all
Speaker 1: these extensive allegations of sexual harassment and abuse in the company.
Speaker 1: And it really is just one of the many ways
Speaker 1: in which her persistence has like paid off time and
Speaker 1: time again. Jody, how did you get him to do it?
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the story, Irwin was it at first
Speaker 1: very nervous. He grew a little more comfortable. You know.
Speaker 1: We were meeting late at night in September at the
Speaker 1: restaurant Little Park in Tribeca. I was like, why does
Speaker 1: he want to meet in the middle of Tribeca in
Speaker 1: a fancy restaurant, But that was his spot. We always
Speaker 1: met in the same place. And he was telling me
Speaker 1: a lot. But this is what sources do, right, the
Speaker 1: very few of them sort of like tell the story
Speaker 1: in order and we'll know exactly what's relevant and what's
Speaker 1: not relevant. So he's telling us all this different stuff
Speaker 1: and and every few nights I'm meeting with him. I'm
Speaker 1: taking everything back to Megan, and we're by day we're
Speaker 1: trying to track it down, nail it down, and I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of it is checking out. And there
Speaker 1: was this memo that he had mentioned a few times,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know how significant it was. And he
Speaker 1: had read me a few lines from the memo and
Speaker 1: I we just thought that there might be more there.
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting there and we're having our glasses of
Speaker 1: wine and I said to him, will you pull up
Speaker 1: that memo on your phone again? So he pulls it
Speaker 1: up on his phone and I really, I think I
Speaker 1: just wanted to like maybe get a couple of words
Speaker 1: right or something. And he looks at me and he says,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to the little boy's room now,
Speaker 1: and he hands me his phone. So it's like he's
Speaker 1: telling me, without explicitly telling me, take this document now.
Speaker 1: You never want to forward it to yourself, right, because
Speaker 1: that's going to leave a digital trail from his email
Speaker 1: address to mine. So instead I'm you know, like sitting
Speaker 1: there at the bar. You know, when you have these
Speaker 1: moments in life when you're saying to your phone. Don't
Speaker 1: have a technical problem, like, please, I just need my
Speaker 1: phone to work for like the next ten minutes. Yeah, exactly. So,
Speaker 1: so his phone is in my lap and I'm holding
Speaker 1: my phone over my lap and I'm careful to scroll
Speaker 1: so I don't like miss any lines, and I'm screenshotting
Speaker 1: every page of this memo, but I still don't know
Speaker 1: what's in it because I have to work really fast
Speaker 1: because I'm trying to, like, you know, be all smooth.
Speaker 1: So anyway, he comes back from the bathroom a minute later,
Speaker 1: and his phone is sitting and waiting for him on
Speaker 1: his chair, and you know, we go through the rest
Speaker 1: of our drink state. But the second he leaves, we
Speaker 1: say goodbye and he's like, I'll walk you out, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna go to the
Speaker 1: ladies room. So I go to the ladies room and
Speaker 1: that's when I send the memo to Megan and Rebecca,
Speaker 1: and then I walk outside in a hail cab and
Speaker 1: that's when I actually read the mamo. And the woman
Speaker 1: who wrote it, Lauren O'Connor, on top of being a
Speaker 1: very talented junior executive, she's a powerful writer. And so
Speaker 1: that memo said things like the balance of power at
Speaker 1: this company is Harvey Weinstein ten me zero. So it's
Speaker 1: sort of like we've been piecing together these allegations from
Speaker 1: you know, twenty five or thirty year time period, and
Speaker 1: remember the earliest allegation, the earliest settlement we've documented that
Speaker 1: Weinstein is paid is think about how early that is.
Speaker 1: Lauren O'Connor. She's writing this memo in twenty and yet
Speaker 1: it's describing some of the same things the women had
Speaker 1: experienced in in the late nineties, Like, for example, she's
Speaker 1: describing an incident at the Peninsula in Beverly Hills. Well,
Speaker 1: Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow have told us about being
Speaker 1: sexually harassed at the Peninsula in Beverly Hills by Weinstein,
Speaker 1: but their stories take place in the mid to late nineties.
Speaker 1: So it's like this sense of how long has this
Speaker 1: guy been doing this and we've got to publish this
Speaker 1: story because nobody else has stopped him. Um, both of you,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, you both have a daughter. Jody
Speaker 1: has to have you have one. You have two daughters,
Speaker 1: and I have an older daughter it was three, and
Speaker 1: I have a younger daughter who's six, and my wife
Speaker 1: and I from time to time think about what kind
Speaker 1: of a world will they interact with in the future.
Speaker 1: We think about that question every day, and the confounding
Speaker 1: thing is that everything's changed and nothing's changed, and I
Speaker 1: still don't have the answer. What hasn't changed. The laws,
Speaker 1: the structures, the systems, the govern how we all behave
Speaker 1: they just haven't changed. It like the difficulty of reporting
Speaker 1: one of these incidents. Maybe there's a little less social stigma,
Speaker 1: but it's not fundamentally different than it was two years ago.
Speaker 1: Federal sexual harassment laws in this country are so weak.
Speaker 1: If you're a freelancer, you're not covered. If you work
Speaker 1: for a workplace that has fewer than fifteen employees, you're
Speaker 1: not covered. So there have been a couple of adjustments
Speaker 1: to the law on the state level, but like the
Speaker 1: fundamental rules of our society have barely changed. So with
Speaker 1: respect to your question about kids, I think about our kids,
Speaker 1: and I think about grandkids, and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: what are we going to tell them about this period?
Speaker 1: Are we going to say? You know, wow, Megan and
Speaker 1: I published this story and found ourselves, you know, at
Speaker 1: ground zero of a historic shift, and and and we
Speaker 1: can see the effects of that, you know, to this day,
Speaker 1: and it really was a window of change. Or are
Speaker 1: we going to say, well, you know, it's sort of
Speaker 1: kind of an extraordinary period and a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: men were fired, but you know, not that much fundamentally shifted.
Speaker 1: And then will the kids and grandkids say, oh, yeah
Speaker 1: that you know, sexual harassment. It still happens at my
Speaker 1: workplace all the time. It happens at my you know,
Speaker 1: the restaurant where I wait tables during the summer. Or
Speaker 1: are they gonna look at us and say, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it used to be okay for male bosses to hit
Speaker 1: on younger female subordinates who they held workplace power over.
Speaker 1: It used to be okay in a restaurant for the
Speaker 1: male manager to grope the waitress. Wasn't right, like like
Speaker 1: they they may they may say, wait a second. People
Speaker 1: in Hollywood, like they just joked about the casting couch
Speaker 1: and they just accepted it as a routine part of
Speaker 1: their business. And will they feel a kind of shock
Speaker 1: at at what used to be tolerated. Well, I want
Speaker 1: to get to that in a minute, about the willingness factor,
Speaker 1: where not that they're willing. But but men believe sometimes
Speaker 1: that they're willing. Megan, tell me about your crystal Ball
Speaker 1: into the future. If you will, Mike crystal Ball in
Speaker 1: the future. I mean, you know, we are so uh,
Speaker 1: we are so immersed in the reporting process a day
Speaker 1: in and day out, you know, the first day right
Speaker 1: after the Weinstein story broke and it started to take off,
Speaker 1: I mean, we had never anticipated that. Two nights before
Speaker 1: we went to you know, we went to publish, Jody
Speaker 1: and I actually stepped back. We've been working around the clock,
Speaker 1: and we actually shared a cab back to Brooklyn at
Speaker 1: about one o'clock in the morning, and in that silent moment,
Speaker 1: turned to each other and said, do you think anybody's
Speaker 1: going to read this story? Does anybody know who Harvey
Speaker 1: Weinstein is? Is anybody going to care? So? I think
Speaker 1: if you're looking for like signs that we were predictors
Speaker 1: of the future, that's certainly not not the case. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that I I you know, I
Speaker 1: think that it's not I would say that that, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that you're actually asking the question in a
Speaker 1: pretty within a pretty narrow framework. I think that we've
Speaker 1: found among are sort of male friends and colleagues that
Speaker 1: they are uh, just as concerned and in parents of sons,
Speaker 1: I think are just as invested in this issue. And
Speaker 1: I think that you talked to parents of daughters and sons,
Speaker 1: they will tell you that they really want to make
Speaker 1: sure that we are able to figure out emerge from
Speaker 1: this moment with some uh sort of agreed upon standards
Speaker 1: that make sure that everybody is treated fairly and receives
Speaker 1: adequate protections, and that that that it's a safe world
Speaker 1: for you know, the girls and the boys. And I've
Speaker 1: got three boys, a four year old, a three year old,
Speaker 1: and a one year old, and I want to go
Speaker 1: off on that tangent, but it's just it's it's really
Speaker 1: remarkable how this plays into that I'm saying to my son, going,
Speaker 1: you know, don't touch anybody without their permission. That's the
Speaker 1: story I don't boy with. But but I was filming
Speaker 1: a documentary film with Jimmy Toback, who is a dear
Speaker 1: friend of mine, and in terms of sexual harassment, there's
Speaker 1: a whole pile of hundreds of women have a kisdom.
Speaker 1: Jimmy is one of those people who believe that if
Speaker 1: my batting average is ten percent. I need to hit
Speaker 1: on a thousand women. I'm not excusing his behavior. But
Speaker 1: Jimmy somebody who I had this deep intellectual exploration with
Speaker 1: about films we were going to do. We developed a
Speaker 1: bunch of projects together. There were very few people in
Speaker 1: the world you could have the kind of conversation about
Speaker 1: movie making you could have with Jimmy. And he was
Speaker 1: a very dear, dear friend of mine. And then all
Speaker 1: this stuff comes up where they say he actually physically
Speaker 1: assaulted um Selma Blair. Now, when someone is your friend,
Speaker 1: you tend to give it some credence. I am the
Speaker 1: south Shore Long Island, middle class white boy that I
Speaker 1: am someone who your friend, right, I mean, like, look,
Speaker 1: if your best friend was convicted of murder, would you
Speaker 1: visit that person in jail? That's like a it's a
Speaker 1: legit moral conundra. I think plenty of us are friends
Speaker 1: with people who have done terrible things wrong and like,
Speaker 1: and that's an interesting decision, right, like do his sins
Speaker 1: against other people? There are arguments for and against that
Speaker 1: eventing you from having a friendship with him. But but
Speaker 1: you know, Harvey Winston is different. I never did business
Speaker 1: with Harvey. You know, years ago, people would say blah
Speaker 1: bladeh blah and Oscars and this and the wine Stein
Speaker 1: Company and Mirramax any raped Rose McGowan, like everybody knew that.
Speaker 1: So what do you think explains that? Why do you
Speaker 1: think that people in your world were able to accept that? First?
Speaker 1: About this talking point? But I think that that's I
Speaker 1: I myself would not use that word, except because when
Speaker 1: I did the movie The Aviator that Harvey produced, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know he was involved. Scorsese himself called me,
Speaker 1: and when Marty calls you, you go. I arrived on
Speaker 1: the set in Montreal to discover that Harvey was one
Speaker 1: of the producer, but he was never there. So I
Speaker 1: do highlight the fact that that accept is not the word.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody that I know accepted anything about him.
Speaker 1: I was so curious about something you said a minute ago,
Speaker 1: which is when you were talking about Toback. You did
Speaker 1: something really interesting, which is you kept alternating between the
Speaker 1: past and the present in terms of talking about whether
Speaker 1: he is your friend or not. You said he was
Speaker 1: my friend, he has my friend. He was my friend,
Speaker 1: he has my friend, So would you still call him
Speaker 1: your friend? I'm just curious, Yes, I don't know that
Speaker 1: he's sexually assaulted women in auditions. I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I don't know that well. But to go back to
Speaker 1: your sort of distinction of you know, it sounds like
Speaker 1: you're paying close attention to this single criminal allegation and
Speaker 1: his denial of a crime. No, I'm only saying that
Speaker 1: there's gradations here, and I think that what Weinsteine did
Speaker 1: was far where and he had the power to do.
Speaker 1: There are also gradations of the victims, right, I mean
Speaker 1: that in the case of wine Stein, he was allegedly
Speaker 1: praying on well known famous actresses as well as you know,
Speaker 1: lowly assistants in his companies. You know, the type of
Speaker 1: twenty three year olds that you wouldn't recognize if you
Speaker 1: pass them on the street, you know who for the
Speaker 1: most part, had sort of disappeared without a trace, without
Speaker 1: you know, ever becoming public before this. And so the
Speaker 1: question there, I think for you is some blair aside
Speaker 1: these dozens of other women who have come forward. They
Speaker 1: may not be famous, but you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: still worth learning those allegations. And here's here's what I
Speaker 1: think would be a really interesting exercise. The James Toback
Speaker 1: coverage was mainly done by the l. A. Times. That's
Speaker 1: my impression. I would go back and read those stories
Speaker 1: and listen to the women because it sounds like you
Speaker 1: may have missed something really important, which is the sort
Speaker 1: of audition factor involved. Then bring charges against me. Well,
Speaker 1: remember you're saying charges, which is a criminal word. Um
Speaker 1: any civil cases brought against Jimmy by those women, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't We'd have to go back and check,
Speaker 1: because again it was it was it was the l
Speaker 1: A Times reporting, not ours. But I guess what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is I think it's worth really listening to the
Speaker 1: women's experiences. Even with the stories that are allegations of
Speaker 1: sexual harassment and not violent sexual assault, there's a harm
Speaker 1: that's real, even if it is and physical, which has
Speaker 1: to do with work, and it can play out over
Speaker 1: a very long time. Let's talk about Weinstein, because those
Speaker 1: are you know, those are the victims we have interviewed
Speaker 1: the most thoroughly. When you talk to women who have
Speaker 1: really terrible stories of sexual harassment by Weinstein, part of
Speaker 1: what a lot of them feel now as a sense
Speaker 1: of loss and grief because even though you know he's
Speaker 1: been outed and even though Um, even though there's a
Speaker 1: sense of sort of like um communal accountability towards him.
Speaker 1: Even though the world now knows about so many of
Speaker 1: these women's stories, what a lot of them say is
Speaker 1: is that you know, I can never be twenty three
Speaker 1: years old again, I can never go audition for those movies.
Speaker 1: I can never have my first job in film again.
Speaker 1: And my whole life is different because of the way
Speaker 1: he treated me. And there's really nothing that can never
Speaker 1: change that. Um. Jodi, how long have you worked at
Speaker 1: the Times? I've been there a long time. I'm like
Speaker 1: fifteen years. And how would you describe the sexual harassment
Speaker 1: policies of the Times? Do you nobody has sexually harassed
Speaker 1: anybody at the Times. I'll tell you what, Alec I
Speaker 1: wouldn't because that is not my job and that is
Speaker 1: not Megan's job. The Times has like a whole hr apparatus,
Speaker 1: and all these editors and leaders who deal what do
Speaker 1: you find satisfactories? Yeah, because, first of all, listen, everybody
Speaker 1: has been affected by me too. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: an organization including we're sitting here at w n y C,
Speaker 1: which has had its own issues over time. Every organization
Speaker 1: is affected by this. It's close to all of us.
Speaker 1: There have been issues at the Times, but Megan and
Speaker 1: I have been very careful not to get involved in
Speaker 1: any of them because we've got to do our jobs,
Speaker 1: and our jobs. You know, we're not the internal cops
Speaker 1: at the Times. Our job is to uncover this information.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't solve a problem. You can, but
Speaker 1: do you see maybe there's there's an odd component to
Speaker 1: that where you want me to make sure I examine
Speaker 1: Jimmy Kotobac in relation to Weinstein as carefully as I should,
Speaker 1: But you don't think you need to examine the Times
Speaker 1: as carefully as mirror Max or Weinstein films. No, because
Speaker 1: we like I mean, I was just curious about your
Speaker 1: personal relationship with him, in your friendship, So I was
Speaker 1: really I was I was really, I was just really
Speaker 1: asking a question. But I don't think you know work context.
Speaker 1: Megan and I bear there are people at the Times
Speaker 1: who bear actual responsibility for making sure that we have
Speaker 1: sound policies for preventing and addressing this kind of behavior.
Speaker 1: That is not Megan or I. Would you have a
Speaker 1: comment about that, Megan, Yeah, I mean there have been
Speaker 1: a variety of cases that have played out at The
Speaker 1: New York Times that have been investigated, and some have
Speaker 1: resulted in people leaving the Times, um some have resulted
Speaker 1: in people being placed on probation. Like it is what
Speaker 1: what's clear to us, and we don't know the details
Speaker 1: of those cases, but we know, like we there is
Speaker 1: evidence of accountability playing out throughout our own organization. And
Speaker 1: you know what we can say beyond that is just
Speaker 1: that when it comes to the reporting on sexual harassment
Speaker 1: and sexual assault at the New York Times, that you know,
Speaker 1: we have had the support of editors and beyond straight
Speaker 1: up to the very top of the organization. You know,
Speaker 1: this was not this is not working just by women.
Speaker 1: This is you know, male editors, the you know, male publishers.
Speaker 1: Are investigations straddled the passing of the baton of of
Speaker 1: the publishers. Both men were like one in support of this.
Speaker 1: And and so we you know, we we we feel
Speaker 1: lucky to live to work in an organization that has
Speaker 1: been willing to put so many resources behind this type
Speaker 1: of work. What do you think men now need to
Speaker 1: learn about how to say to you, I'm attracted to you.
Speaker 1: Is that all going to change? Now should it change. Well, listen,
Speaker 1: I think that there's agreement, um that there is a
Speaker 1: hunger for kind of a clearer sense of what the
Speaker 1: guidelines should be in the workplace, but within dating and
Speaker 1: more broadly in relations of men and women. There's no
Speaker 1: question that everybody can have sexually satisfying lives, in romantic
Speaker 1: lives normal while also figuring out how to treat each
Speaker 1: other with respect. And I think that that's you know,
Speaker 1: I think that the worst thing that could happen is
Speaker 1: that people don't talk about these issues. And if they're not,
Speaker 1: whether it's with their kids or their you know, their partners,
Speaker 1: or in the workplace, but in also in these interviews,
Speaker 1: you know, like worst just so grateful that you were
Speaker 1: willing to talk to us about, for example, your relationship
Speaker 1: with Tobac, and like, thank you for engaging with us.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean I don't have work to do,
Speaker 1: which you've reminded me of that again. I mean we
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back and read those l A
Speaker 1: Times pieces and I'm going to contact the writer, the
Speaker 1: principal writer of that. See he'll come to the show
Speaker 1: and talk about that. I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 1: I would also just say that I think it's really
Speaker 1: important to recognize that this is really abuse of power.
Speaker 1: This is not just a sort of sexual preference or
Speaker 1: a tool that's being used by unattractive guys because they
Speaker 1: wouldn't otherwise be able to get women's Yeah, that this
Speaker 1: is abusive power. I want to end by saying that
Speaker 1: this was one of the more difficult and on my part,
Speaker 1: least successful interviews I've ever done. Both of these writers
Speaker 1: know their subject, and my own grasp of the me
Speaker 1: too issue is in need of further research. The writer
Speaker 1: they referred to from The l A Times is Glenn Whip,
Speaker 1: and we will surely invite him on in soon. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, the fiction between believe the victim and innocent
Speaker 1: until proven guilty continues. Thanks to Jodie Canter and Megan Tuey.
Speaker 1: I am reminded that we are never done re examining
Speaker 1: this issue and our own relationship to it. Their book
Speaker 1: about their Weinstein reporting and its fallout is called she
Speaker 1: said Out Now from Penguin Press. I'm Alec Baldwin, and
Speaker 1: you're listening to here's the thing