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Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Katie Couric Media. Hi everyone, I'm Katie Kuric,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Next Question, where we try to understand
Speaker 1: the complicated world we're living in and the crazy things
Speaker 1: that are happening by asking questions and by listening to
Speaker 1: people who really know what they're talking about. At times,
Speaker 1: it may lead to some pretty uncomfortable conversations, but stick
Speaker 1: with me, everyone, let's all learn together. Hey guys, going
Speaker 1: hello ron In here. He is on stop seventy nine
Speaker 1: of the Whistle Stop Tour. How are you looking forward to? Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too. Thank you so much for making time. I
Speaker 1: think we'll have a really interesting conversation. Guess we will
Speaker 1: catch up on This week we're exploring workplace culture, and
Speaker 1: not just any workplace NBC News, where I spent nearly
Speaker 1: twenty years of my career. The story that Ronan Pharaoh
Speaker 1: chronicles in his new book Patch and Kill is full
Speaker 1: of intrigue, deception, and accusations of sexual assault and corporate malfeasance.
Speaker 1: It's the story I have been thinking a lot about
Speaker 1: and processing for the last two years, and one I'm
Speaker 1: actually writing about as I work on my own book
Speaker 1: about my personal and professional life. But for now, my
Speaker 1: next question, how and why did NBC News fail to
Speaker 1: give the green light to one of the most important
Speaker 1: stories of the year. Ronan Pharaoh is here to answer
Speaker 1: that question. Ronan, good morning, good morning. Nice to see you.
Speaker 1: And you've been working on this book for two years.
Speaker 1: You want to pull a serprise for your reporting of
Speaker 1: Harvey Weinstein and The New Yorker. When did you first
Speaker 1: become aware of rumors about Harvey Weinstein? You know, people
Speaker 1: talk about this question of what did people know in
Speaker 1: the orbit of a lot of the bull that I've
Speaker 1: reported on. And there's people who knew as in they
Speaker 1: had specific information about a serious allegation of a crime.
Speaker 1: And there's people who knew in air quotes, right like,
Speaker 1: they knew a little bit about a reputation for being gross.
Speaker 1: They've heard a thing or two here or there. I
Speaker 1: was at most in the latter category. You know. I
Speaker 1: had a peripheral knowledge of sort of a larger than
Speaker 1: life producer who had a kind of, uh course, bullying style.
Speaker 1: And I had seen, you know, a Gawker item or
Speaker 1: two about casting couch stuff. And I was working on
Speaker 1: for my Today Show series, a mini series about Hollywood
Speaker 1: and investigative topics in Hollywood. One of those topics was
Speaker 1: casting couch, and very quickly the conversations about Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: turned from that kind of subject transactional sexual relationships in
Speaker 1: the workplace, which is already a serious conversation to have,
Speaker 1: to something that was more serious and even criminal. You
Speaker 1: mentioned that NBC News President Noah and Heim initially championed
Speaker 1: your work. In fact, he was the one who first
Speaker 1: suggested you look into Rose McGowan's claims that an unnamed
Speaker 1: studio had had raped her. Do you believe at the
Speaker 1: time he thought she was talking about Harvey Weinstein. You know,
Speaker 1: I can't speak for Noah Oppenheim's state of mind. For
Speaker 1: a long time he denied having given that assignment. Um,
Speaker 1: he now admits that. Uh. I am grateful for the
Speaker 1: fact that, over the course of many years, a number
Speaker 1: of people at NBC championed tough reporting that I was doing.
Speaker 1: And really I went into this body of reporting with
Speaker 1: a lot of positive feelings about those executives outside of
Speaker 1: this set of interactions where something suspicious was happening, not
Speaker 1: just according to me, but according to working level people.
Speaker 1: Including my producer who witnessed the shutdown of the story. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the elements and your path
Speaker 1: to breaking this story rown in because you know, you
Speaker 1: did it in a methodical way, gathering your evidence and
Speaker 1: obviously getting people to talk to you on camera and off.
Speaker 1: You and Rich MQ, your producer. Um, you had a
Speaker 1: tape recording of Harvey Weinstein admitting to groping model Amber
Speaker 1: guy terrorists. What other evidence had you amassed in the
Speaker 1: process of your reporting? In every draft of this story
Speaker 1: while it was at NBC News, we had multiple named women,
Speaker 1: including Amber gautierres cooperating, having showed us a million dollar
Speaker 1: contract to buy her silence and destroy this evidence. Obviously
Speaker 1: the damning tape. Um Rose McGowan was on the record,
Speaker 1: full face with a wrenching account of this and had
Speaker 1: named Harvey Weinstein on the record repeatedly. But then she
Speaker 1: sort of didn't. She kind of got back and forth
Speaker 1: run yes, And when the story was so slow ruled
Speaker 1: for so long, she began to develop suspicions about this
Speaker 1: network and pulled out and has talked very openly on
Speaker 1: the record in recent days about that there was another woman,
Speaker 1: Emily Nestor correct, and the moment Rose pulled out another
Speaker 1: brave woman, Emily Nestor, who had already done an extraordinary
Speaker 1: thing going on camera anonymously, immediately said I will put
Speaker 1: my name on this. She also has gone on the
Speaker 1: record in recent days saying, you know, I offered to
Speaker 1: go on the record while the story was on television.
Speaker 1: She was a former assistant of Harvey Weinstein. Emily nest
Speaker 1: was a temporary assistant at the Weinstein Company front desk assistant.
Speaker 1: First day on the job, Harvey Weinstein begins sexually harassing her,
Speaker 1: and she is a great example of a really upstanding
Speaker 1: person who immediately said this is wrong, and potentially it's
Speaker 1: a sign of other people going through more serious things.
Speaker 1: So she gave a detailed account, and you know what
Speaker 1: she has said on the record is I offered to
Speaker 1: put my face on my name out there, and NBC
Speaker 1: News was not interested in that story. During the course
Speaker 1: of your reporting, you write, it's almost a thriller catching
Speaker 1: kill because you talk about being tailed by Israeli spies.
Speaker 1: You talk about someone suggesting you get a gun put
Speaker 1: your research in a safety deposit box. What did that
Speaker 1: tell you about the links Harvey Weinstein was willing to
Speaker 1: go to to protect his reputation and to keep this
Speaker 1: story from going public. You know, both of us, Katie,
Speaker 1: have been on tough stories where we see how angry
Speaker 1: powerful interests get and how systems get spun up against reporting.
Speaker 1: And people talk about reading the book and feeling like
Speaker 1: it's a spy thriller, as you said, And on the
Speaker 1: one hand that sort of glamorizing in retrospect, but also
Speaker 1: I take out of that like this is a country
Speaker 1: where we have the First Amendment and spy thriller tactics
Speaker 1: shouldn't be thrown at real life reporters. And to me,
Speaker 1: that issue is bigger than Harvey Weinstein. It's bigger than
Speaker 1: anyone industry. It is about a full frontal assault on
Speaker 1: the free press right now, through everything from rhetoric deployed
Speaker 1: by politicians trying to say we're the enemy of the people. Uh,
Speaker 1: two powerful individuals using lawyers to threaten reporting, which has
Speaker 1: happened around virtually every story that I put out, including
Speaker 1: these stories and catch and kill um. Right now, this
Speaker 1: book is banned by some retailers in Australia because of
Speaker 1: spurious legal threats from the top editor at the National
Speaker 1: Inquirer who doesn't want some things about his relationship with
Speaker 1: Trump exposed. Um, this is a fragile, precious institution, and
Speaker 1: thankfully there's still a lot of protections in this country,
Speaker 1: but it can go south very fast if we don't
Speaker 1: have a conversation about protecting it. Of course, every reporter
Speaker 1: has experienced outside pressure, and you're right, I think it's
Speaker 1: more intense than ever before in a variety of quarters.
Speaker 1: But when you stop to think about it, we're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is insane. Yeah, that's exactly what
Speaker 1: I thought. I mean, when when you're looking over your
Speaker 1: shoulder and seeing the same guys again and seeing the
Speaker 1: same car again, and sources are telling you you've got
Speaker 1: to get a gun, and you're moving out of your
Speaker 1: your place, and you're wondering, am I being paranoid? Is
Speaker 1: this too much? And you know, as sources were saying
Speaker 1: similar things, I've heard a lot of news executives say,
Speaker 1: come on, these ladies are crazy. They think they're being
Speaker 1: followed and stuff, And it's pretty soon those same kinds
Speaker 1: of lines we're getting thrown at me. You know, you're
Speaker 1: sleeping enough, You're doing okay here these are crazy things,
Speaker 1: suspicions that you have, and then to be able to
Speaker 1: document and prove that now there are actually Russian spies
Speaker 1: chasing you and they're subcontractors for Israeli former Massad agents.
Speaker 1: It's the reaction that you just described. What are you
Speaker 1: still worried about your personal safety now that the book
Speaker 1: is out? I do worry. I'll be honest, you know,
Speaker 1: I really try to talk about this in a way
Speaker 1: that is not woe is me, because I am not
Speaker 1: a reporter in Pakistan or in Russia facing the prospect of,
Speaker 1: you know, winding up dead the next morning. The moment
Speaker 1: you talk about power in your country. That is the
Speaker 1: norm in so much of the world, and that is
Speaker 1: not my situation, thank god. Um. But I do think
Speaker 1: it's worth talking frankly about this because there are a
Speaker 1: lot of reporters right here in this country who face
Speaker 1: a lot of intimidation tactics. It's bigger than just me,
Speaker 1: and and so the answer is yes, you know, I
Speaker 1: go through moments where I fear for my safety. You
Speaker 1: outline many really disturbing and heartbreaking stories about Harvey Weinstein's victims,
Speaker 1: and I remember reading your reporting throughout this in The
Speaker 1: New Yorker and being specially affected by Annabella Shiura. Yes,
Speaker 1: because this was something that was so upsetting to me,
Speaker 1: that story and the details of that story. It took
Speaker 1: her a long time to come forward, and in fact,
Speaker 1: she didn't initially during the at the early stages of
Speaker 1: your reporting. Can you talk about her for a moment,
Speaker 1: because I don't know what it was about her story
Speaker 1: that just sort of cut me to the core. I
Speaker 1: have the same reaction. I get very emotional thinking about
Speaker 1: Annabella's story and what she went through and still goes
Speaker 1: through to this day in terms of her personal trauma.
Speaker 1: She was brave, not just in talking to me, but
Speaker 1: in allowing me to tell the full story of the
Speaker 1: fact that when I first picked up the phone and
Speaker 1: called her, she panicked and said, no, I don't know anything.
Speaker 1: By the way, running we should probably just say she's
Speaker 1: an actress. I remember her the most from the hand
Speaker 1: that rocks the cradle um and then she did kind
Speaker 1: of disappear, right, And that's part of her story too.
Speaker 1: You know. Annabella Shiora recounted both a brutal, violent sexual
Speaker 1: attack that is shocking to the conscience, as are so
Speaker 1: many of these stories, and she also described a pattern
Speaker 1: of what appears to be stalking afterwards from Harvey Weinstein,
Speaker 1: where he was doing everything up to and including, you know,
Speaker 1: bursting into her hotel room unannounced and without permission. Years later,
Speaker 1: and she finally describes something that is common in a
Speaker 1: lot of these instances, which is she is convinced that
Speaker 1: she was smeared and blacklisted and that the evaporation of
Speaker 1: her ascendant prior to that career was not unrelated to
Speaker 1: the fact that she had this series of encounters where
Speaker 1: she rebuffed Harvey Weinstein. Let's go back to your reporting
Speaker 1: on Weinstein at NBC. Things started to get complicated, Ron,
Speaker 1: and you were told to stand down on your story
Speaker 1: pending an NBC Universal investigation, which struck me as very
Speaker 1: strange because it wasn't an NBC News investigation but an
Speaker 1: NBC Universal investigation. Why do you think a corporate review
Speaker 1: was underway? And did this go all the way up
Speaker 1: to Steve Burke, the CEO of NBC Universal. This is
Speaker 1: not just an account of events that comes from me.
Speaker 1: This is a documented paper trail of what happened in
Speaker 1: this company. This is transcripts, This is conversations between Harvey
Speaker 1: Weinstein and executives that they have now admitted to and
Speaker 1: previously concealed. And this is testimonials from people at a
Speaker 1: working level, including my producer on this story, who saw
Speaker 1: the whole thing get shut down. And you know, what
Speaker 1: is clearly laid out in this book is that these
Speaker 1: executives were embattled that Harvey Weinstein was laying siege to them,
Speaker 1: that in at least fifteen secret calls, he extracted promises
Speaker 1: from them that this story would be killed. And this
Speaker 1: is prior to any kind of authentic journalistic review. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: my producer and I are being ordered to stop, to
Speaker 1: stand down, to not take so much as a call.
Speaker 1: You know, No Oppenheim, president of NBC News, on six
Speaker 1: occasions in this book and in the actual transcripts of
Speaker 1: these events, says you got to stop. And what I
Speaker 1: uncover here is that at the same time that they
Speaker 1: are making these arguments that Harvey Weinstein's attorney has given them,
Speaker 1: including the idea that it is not appropriate for a
Speaker 1: news organization to report on secret sexual harassment settlements, they
Speaker 1: are brokering and enforcing their own secret sexual harassment settlements
Speaker 1: within NBC. So we've talked about this in the context
Speaker 1: of the CBS story, where I also reported that there
Speaker 1: was a chain of executives accused of misconduct, as is
Speaker 1: the case at NBC, that there was a chain of
Speaker 1: secret settlements to get rid of the problem rather than
Speaker 1: address it um And I point out that comparison because
Speaker 1: this is bigger than anyone TV exactly who cares. These
Speaker 1: are not household names. It's bigger than anyone network. This
Speaker 1: is about patterns of complicity and cover up that allow
Speaker 1: people to get hurt in an ongoing way at these
Speaker 1: companies and allow our most important news institutions to bow
Speaker 1: to powerful people. There was a suggestion that you might
Speaker 1: not be objective in your reporting because of Harvey Weinstein's
Speaker 1: relationship with your strange father, Woody Allen, about what you
Speaker 1: believe happened to your sister at the hands of Woody Allen,
Speaker 1: and Noah Oppenheim accused you of having an agenda? Did
Speaker 1: he have a point in any way in terms of
Speaker 1: Ronan you being motivated somehow by Dylan's experience, because you
Speaker 1: write very movingly at the end of the book about
Speaker 1: what I detected feelings of guilt that you didn't step
Speaker 1: forward enough and protect your sister. On every story I
Speaker 1: work on, Katie, incredibly personal stuff gets weaponized against me.
Speaker 1: One of the first tactics that gets thrown at reporters
Speaker 1: is how do we make this personal? And in this case,
Speaker 1: I reveal here the legal threat letters from Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: which raised things like an uncle that I had never
Speaker 1: met who was convicted of pedophilia, or the fact that
Speaker 1: my sister was sexually assaulted. And you know, the idea was,
Speaker 1: it's not always clear what the factual link is, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, every reporter has obviously looked at this and said,
Speaker 1: there's no conflict of interest in either of those cases.
Speaker 1: This is just someone who is familiar with the issue
Speaker 1: of sexual assault and violence and how important it is.
Speaker 1: And it's a question and theme that I examined in
Speaker 1: the book in a real the fourth right way. You know,
Speaker 1: I talk about people like Ben Wallace from New York
Speaker 1: Magazine and Kenna Letta from The New Yorker being obsessed
Speaker 1: with the story, Kenna Letta using words like fixated this
Speaker 1: this wonderful New Yorker writer who worked for years striving
Speaker 1: to break this thing about Harvey Weinstein and then and
Speaker 1: then being generous and helping me along. And I think
Speaker 1: I compare him to the homicide beat cop kept up
Speaker 1: at night by the case that got away. So there
Speaker 1: is a degree of obsession that kicks in when you
Speaker 1: are an investigative reporter on a big story. But very clearly,
Speaker 1: I think for anyone who was actually looking at that,
Speaker 1: including obviously the editors of The New Yorker that ran
Speaker 1: the story, that's called caring about an issue, not like
Speaker 1: having a business deal gone bad with Harvey Weinstein, right,
Speaker 1: And I don't even think it necessarily is. I'm not
Speaker 1: suggesting it's a conflict of interest. What I mean it
Speaker 1: is became intensely in some ways personal for you. The
Speaker 1: the issue. It became one that I understood the stakes
Speaker 1: of on a person, the level which is different from
Speaker 1: there being any kind of direct factual link. You know,
Speaker 1: my sister's allegation is a very different case. And part
Speaker 1: of my journey that I described in this book was
Speaker 1: being a guy for a long time who spoke to
Speaker 1: a sexual assault survivor in his life and said, why
Speaker 1: don't you just move on? Why does this matter so much?
Speaker 1: And over the course of Catch and Kill, I really
Speaker 1: come to realize how wrong I was, and the fact
Speaker 1: that I was part of a culture that looks the
Speaker 1: other way and moves on because this is an inconvenient
Speaker 1: thing to talk about. In fact, when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the ramifications, the long term
Speaker 1: repercussions of sexual assault, which I think we're only now
Speaker 1: starting to truly understand, and what happened after you left
Speaker 1: NBC and continue to work on this story. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back grown in. After you left NBC, the article
Speaker 1: appeared in The New Yorker, and NBC repeatedly claimed that
Speaker 1: you didn't have enough evidence, that you didn't meet their
Speaker 1: standards for putting a story on the air. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about sort of the reaction after you left NBC when
Speaker 1: the story did come out, and I would point out,
Speaker 1: you know, the indisputable fact is I left that building
Speaker 1: and I showed the same reporting that NBC had had
Speaker 1: to The New Yorker, and their reaction was, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is a hugely significant body of reporting. We've got
Speaker 1: a rush to finish this. Uh. You know, the the
Speaker 1: supposition of either me or any of the working level
Speaker 1: journalists on this, including my producer, was never that we
Speaker 1: couldn't have done more reporting. In fact, we had offered
Speaker 1: more interviews that NBC than canceled. Um. The point was
Speaker 1: that we were ordered to stop under suspicious circumstances. So
Speaker 1: you know, I'll let people judge for themselves whether that
Speaker 1: reporting should have gotten on air. Clearly that the judgment
Speaker 1: of The New Yorker was this had to get out
Speaker 1: and urgently, and there's been a fair amount of misinformation
Speaker 1: put out about the timeline. The New Yorker green lit
Speaker 1: this story and then four weeks later it was in print,
Speaker 1: and it was a Pulitzer Prize winning article, and that
Speaker 1: is thanks to the bravery of the women who spoke.
Speaker 1: It is thanks to the editors there who were incredible journalists,
Speaker 1: and like most journalists who have looked at this, saw
Speaker 1: the evidence for what it was. At one point there
Speaker 1: was even something changed and was it in Wikipedia or
Speaker 1: in another account that said that your reporting took months.
Speaker 1: NBC has now admitted to hiring a Wikipedia whitewashing surface
Speaker 1: to scrub from the pages of Noah Oppenheim and other
Speaker 1: NBC executives references to this scandal to separate out sentences
Speaker 1: that mentioned both Matt Lauer and Harvey Weinstein. In a
Speaker 1: connected way, and to remove references is to the New
Speaker 1: Yorker running the story rapidly afterwards, which is accurate. And indeed,
Speaker 1: in some cases they had this Wikipedia whitewasher inaccurately insert
Speaker 1: that month's past before the New Yorker ran the story.
Speaker 1: So when you see a news organization scrubbing the public
Speaker 1: record in this way and inserting just outright falsehoods um,
Speaker 1: it really does raise the ways in which this is
Speaker 1: bigger than one network, one company. This is about the truth.
Speaker 1: Much of the book is about why NBC didn't go
Speaker 1: with this story obviously, and you point to a number
Speaker 1: of factors, and I thought we could break them down.
Speaker 1: One was, I think the history and the baggage of
Speaker 1: the men in charge of making these decisions. I think
Speaker 1: the facts make it very clear that while the tone
Speaker 1: is really sober, and I don't go beyond exactly what
Speaker 1: the facts say. So therefore, you know, you don't see
Speaker 1: an account of like a mustache twirling back room, people
Speaker 1: in the shadows signing contracts in blood. What you see is,
Speaker 1: I think, how this really looks when dirty deals are
Speaker 1: cut in context, which is a long chain of secret
Speaker 1: calls and conversations and promises to kill a story being made.
Speaker 1: In those calls, you see Harvey Weinstein's legal threat letters
Speaker 1: to me saying explicitly I have a deal with NBC.
Speaker 1: I have written assurances from them that they will kill
Speaker 1: this story and assert a copyright claim if you try
Speaker 1: to take the reporting elsewhere. And you see a documented
Speaker 1: paper trail showing that as Harvey Weinstein was making these
Speaker 1: arguments about secret settlements, this company had many of their
Speaker 1: own that had been concealed before we talk about those
Speaker 1: secret settlements, So you talk about the personal histories of
Speaker 1: some of the individuals involved, i e. Andy Lack, No Oppenheim,
Speaker 1: and Phil Griffin. In each of these cases, you have
Speaker 1: individuals that are accused of either misconduct or some very
Speaker 1: troubling beliefs themselves. You know, you have Andy Lack, about
Speaker 1: whom multiple women are on the record in this book
Speaker 1: saying that when they were associate producers or talent on
Speaker 1: his shows, they were propositioned um slept with him and
Speaker 1: were retaliated against. This was in the eighties, correct, That's right,
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties. This is his his CBS era
Speaker 1: UM And so you know, I think it's relevant that
Speaker 1: although time has passed. This is someone who when Harvey
Speaker 1: Weinstein says to him, look, we all did this, and
Speaker 1: is trying to couch this as affairs with underlings. Uh,
Speaker 1: you have an audience that has a specific perspective on that,
Speaker 1: you know. And Andy Lack has not denied those relationships.
Speaker 1: He's denied that he retaliated against those women. I should
Speaker 1: point out Noah Oppenheim, you know, is someone who wrote
Speaker 1: voluminously about how women's voices on this issue should be
Speaker 1: called into question and how you know, in his words,
Speaker 1: women enjoy being pumped full of alcohol and preyed upon
Speaker 1: at frat parties. And this was when he was at
Speaker 1: the Harvard Crensit's right, and that he's I think, apologized
Speaker 1: for those and said he intentionally wrote provocative pieces. Right,
Speaker 1: And all of that is textas in the book. You know,
Speaker 1: I really strive to be generous to Noah Oppenheim and
Speaker 1: these executives in the book. There's one very disturbing story
Speaker 1: I think about Phil Griffin, you know, I know all
Speaker 1: these people, so uh, and and that is about taking
Speaker 1: a photo of Maria Manunos that was I guess taken
Speaker 1: by paparazzi printing it out that, you know, exposing herself
Speaker 1: unintentionally and then passing it out at a meeting where
Speaker 1: you were in attendance. There was one woman there and
Speaker 1: the rest were men. Did you say anything at the
Speaker 1: time he was doing this. I'm just curious, did you say, Phil,
Speaker 1: this is disgusting or why are you doing this? It's
Speaker 1: a great question and the answer is no. You know,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's how these conversations often go.
Speaker 1: You know, this is my boss. This is a kind
Speaker 1: of conversation that you see a lot in this book
Speaker 1: that when boys think they're in the boys club, and
Speaker 1: you know, if there's a woman in the room, then
Speaker 1: she's a woman who's not going to talk back, they
Speaker 1: do talk like this, and and I'm careful not to
Speaker 1: overblow that kind of a charge of sort of gross talk.
Speaker 1: But I think that all of this is relevant in
Speaker 1: the context of the present day conversations about very serious
Speaker 1: news judgment decisions. You know, I say in the book,
Speaker 1: Noah Oppenheim wrote those things about women when he was young.
Speaker 1: He was trying to be a provocateur. People grow the immature.
Speaker 1: But it is also worth noting that in this specific case,
Speaker 1: Noah Oppenheim makes the same kinds of arguments in the
Speaker 1: present day. He says, in response to a taped confession
Speaker 1: of sexual assault, that I play for him. You know,
Speaker 1: people say a lot of things like that when they're
Speaker 1: they're trying to get rid of a girl like that. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, he evinces views on women and about the
Speaker 1: extent to which this issue matters that are broadly consistent
Speaker 1: with those earlier writings. And you know, similarly, you have
Speaker 1: someone like Phil Griffin, who in this book producers described
Speaker 1: being dragged to peep shows by him and being you know,
Speaker 1: told things that make them extremely uncomfortable. Um. Also, in
Speaker 1: conversations with Harvey Weinstein promised to kill a story about
Speaker 1: some of these issues. You have Andy Lack, who has
Speaker 1: slept with underlings and allegedly retaliated against them hearing from
Speaker 1: Harvey Weinstein. You know, this is normal behavior, and I
Speaker 1: think therefore it's not a gotcha to include those things.
Speaker 1: These are important pieces of context for understanding the people
Speaker 1: who make the decisions about our narrative, about our country.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the relationship, the connection between Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: and Matt Lauer. Explain the evidence you have that Harvey
Speaker 1: Weinstein was working with the tabloids, specifically the National Enquired
Speaker 1: to exert pressure on NBC not to go with this
Speaker 1: story about him. What was he using as leverage and
Speaker 1: what evidence do you have of that? So it is
Speaker 1: indisputable that Harvey Weinstein had to deal with the National Inquirer.
Speaker 1: That's something that I've reported previously that he was huddled
Speaker 1: with Dylan Howard, the top editor at the National Enquirer,
Speaker 1: and Dylan Howard was being used as an attack mechanism
Speaker 1: and secretly recording people on be Weinstein's behalf and running
Speaker 1: items on Harvey Weinstein's behalf. It's also indisputable that those
Speaker 1: items included an escalating chain of stories about Matt Lower
Speaker 1: and either affairs or Piccadillo's or misconduct in the office,
Speaker 1: and you know, items about things like NBC executives getting
Speaker 1: fed up with his misconduct around the workplace. Um, so
Speaker 1: this was an area of focus for them. Those are
Speaker 1: items that ran. We also uncover in the reporting in
Speaker 1: this book that the National Enquirer was among the first
Speaker 1: to obtain the resume of Brooke Neville's the woman who
Speaker 1: ultimately got Matt Lower fired. You know, they had pursued
Speaker 1: Matt Lower's accusers for years over the course of these events.
Speaker 1: While I'm reporting on this story, Dylan Howard pulls the
Speaker 1: kill file stories that they've gotten rid of about Matt Lower.
Speaker 1: He begins besieging NBC and his reporters began besieging NBC
Speaker 1: with calls about Matt Lower. Um and that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: formal calls to to the PR department. These are calls
Speaker 1: to personnel around NBC. So there is, in addition to
Speaker 1: the multiple sourced account that a threat was explicitly delivered here,
Speaker 1: and we do have those in the book. Along with
Speaker 1: NBC's denial that any such threat was delivered, there is
Speaker 1: an indisputable, uh juxtaposition of a situation where Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: was laying siege to this organization and this organization's secrets
Speaker 1: were very much under threat of exposure. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me how the threat was explicitly delivered to NBC A
Speaker 1: quid pro quo if you will, I'll leave it at
Speaker 1: the exact precise reporting in the book, which is very
Speaker 1: precisely fact checked and in which we're very confident, But
Speaker 1: there are multiple sources of both NBC and ad Am I,
Speaker 1: who say that that's the case. We're on, and throughout
Speaker 1: the book we encounter women like Asia Argento and Brooke
Speaker 1: Nevil's who claimed to have been raped Asia the first
Speaker 1: by Harvey Weinstein, Brooke Nevels by Matt Lauer, and then
Speaker 1: continued seeing those same men. Both men have denied the allegations.
Speaker 1: You also say, quote Weinstein suggested repeatedly that an interaction
Speaker 1: wasn't rape if the woman in question came back to
Speaker 1: him later, and in defending himself in that open letter,
Speaker 1: Matt Loward denies his relationship with Nevill's was ever not consensual,
Speaker 1: and wrote that after Neville's claimed the first encounter was
Speaker 1: an assault, she quote actively participated in arranging future meetings
Speaker 1: and met me at my apartment on multiple occasions to
Speaker 1: continue the affair. When people questioned the validity of these
Speaker 1: allegations because they were not reported immediately and sexual encounters
Speaker 1: continued afterwards, given how much you've studied this issue, how
Speaker 1: do you explain that to them? So I'm glad you
Speaker 1: raised this because it is one very common facet of
Speaker 1: sexual violence that it is perpetrated in many cases by
Speaker 1: family members, by bosses, by people that an alleged victim
Speaker 1: can't get away from. And you know, we include Matt
Speaker 1: or is thinking very clearly in the book. The rebuttals
Speaker 1: that are in that letter are also woven into the narrative,
Speaker 1: and I think people can judge the facts for themselves.
Speaker 1: This is not as Matt Lauer describes Um in Brooke
Speaker 1: Neville's Rendering an Affair. This is a case of a
Speaker 1: junior employee who has already immediately begun reporting two people
Speaker 1: around her that this was an attack, feeling terrified and
Speaker 1: placed in a in a position where she is cornered
Speaker 1: by these invitations to go to his apartment, have drinks,
Speaker 1: all the things he mentioned, who is struggling not to
Speaker 1: piss off a powerful man. In her account of events,
Speaker 1: um And, who she readily concedes, did everything in her
Speaker 1: power to put him at ease, to try to make
Speaker 1: him feel that she was okay with things and she
Speaker 1: wasn't going to tell on him. Um And And, by
Speaker 1: the way, that follow on of contacts between them included
Speaker 1: interactions where she just described trying to get away from
Speaker 1: him and being forced to interact with him for professional reasons,
Speaker 1: having to go to his office to get things or
Speaker 1: tape things and UH, and then him propositioning her for
Speaker 1: sexual favors, and how demoralizing and brutalizing that was. So.
Speaker 1: I hope people read the narrative in the book in full,
Speaker 1: because it is both fair to Matt Lowers thinking and
Speaker 1: also lays out a much more complicated portrait than the
Speaker 1: items that have been planted, saying this is just an affair.
Speaker 1: And in fact, your account of Brooke Neville's uh conversation
Speaker 1: with you you visit her at her apartment. I think
Speaker 1: is is heartbreaking, and I think it does I think
Speaker 1: provide a window into the psychology of someone who has
Speaker 1: been victimized. This is both about sexual abuse and also
Speaker 1: the abuse of power. And you know, one recurring theme
Speaker 1: that has been raised by some of these alleged survivors
Speaker 1: of Matt Lowers predation is the idea that they were
Speaker 1: targeted in part because of their junior position and the
Speaker 1: fact that they worked for around people who were peers
Speaker 1: of Matt Lowers, and that perhaps in some sense there
Speaker 1: was a power play element to that. You know, it
Speaker 1: is not for me to psychologize or explain why someone
Speaker 1: in a position of that kind of influence would choose
Speaker 1: to sleep with underlings and in the workplace rather than
Speaker 1: anyone else in the world. NBC News insists, then, when
Speaker 1: Matt Lower was fired in November of two thousand and seventeen,
Speaker 1: this was the first time they had ever heard of
Speaker 1: official allegations of sexual misconduct against him. You write, there
Speaker 1: were multiple n d A S two I believe involving
Speaker 1: Matt Lower. Tell me about those and about evidence that
Speaker 1: you believe refutes their contention. This was their first real
Speaker 1: understanding of Matt Lower's behavior in the workplace. Well, there
Speaker 1: point on this is some what more modeled than what
Speaker 1: you just alluded to. You know, there have been allusions
Speaker 1: to the idea that perhaps previous management knew but no
Speaker 1: Oppenheim specifically didn't know. So they've said a number of
Speaker 1: things around this, and you know, many of those comments
Speaker 1: are in the book, and I'll let them stand on
Speaker 1: their own. What is not disputable, as there is a
Speaker 1: paper trail in this book that shows that in a
Speaker 1: period where the General Council of NBC told the reporters
Speaker 1: of NBC there were no sexual harassment settlements, in fact,
Speaker 1: there were at least seven. Several of those were with
Speaker 1: women who had voiced complaints about Matt Lauer within the
Speaker 1: company that were discussed at a very senior level years before.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that. About the
Speaker 1: protocol of you know, how these things work, is that
Speaker 1: the legal department do they go up to the very
Speaker 1: highest level of management. Is it in fact possible that
Speaker 1: these things were happening or transpiring without the knowledge of
Speaker 1: the top executives at the organization? You know, and Curry,
Speaker 1: a former colleague of ours, is on the record in
Speaker 1: this book talking about how she told senior executives, and
Speaker 1: I spoke to senior executives who were told by multiple people.
Speaker 1: You know, there is a Matt lower problem. Matt Louer
Speaker 1: is at least verbally harassing women in the office, maybe more.
Speaker 1: And the answer to your question about systems and protocols is,
Speaker 1: so often in these cases, what we're seeing is not
Speaker 1: systems and protocols, but a failure of those things. You know,
Speaker 1: it is true at Fox, at the Weinstein Company, at
Speaker 1: CBS that none of the people that ultimately were fired
Speaker 1: from misconduct had any record in their HR files about
Speaker 1: sexual harassment. You know. Bill O'Reilly pointed out constantly there
Speaker 1: is no record in my HR file. Harvey Weinstein pointed
Speaker 1: out constantly, there's no record in my HR file. And
Speaker 1: you know, human resources officials, who are tasked with monitoring
Speaker 1: these kinds of issues in the workplace play a really
Speaker 1: important role. And when we see these issues being discussed
Speaker 1: but not being formally recorded in companies, that's a serious
Speaker 1: failure of systems. I think there should be a separate
Speaker 1: organization of HR personnel who do not answer to the
Speaker 1: power structure at an organization. There needs to be, and
Speaker 1: we see this question of independence all the time. There
Speaker 1: are multiple scenes in which the wonderful journalists of NBC
Speaker 1: who are now anguished about this and calling for accountability,
Speaker 1: including on air, telling their bosses we need an independent
Speaker 1: investigation of Matt Louer of the killing of the Weinstein story.
Speaker 1: Over and over again this comes up and leadership at
Speaker 1: this company refuses. And this is a theme that again
Speaker 1: is bigger than NBC. We've seen it at multiple companies
Speaker 1: where there is resistance to outside independent review. An internal
Speaker 1: review is not a review, and I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the lessons of this era. I was surprised that
Speaker 1: they ordered an internal review and there wasn't that much
Speaker 1: pushback inside NBC although perhaps there was there there was,
Speaker 1: and we documented. You know, there's this incredible exchange where, uh,
Speaker 1: the journalists of the investigative Unit sit with Kim Harris,
Speaker 1: the general counsel of this company, and these wonderful reporters say,
Speaker 1: why are we not doing an outside review, even if
Speaker 1: it's unflattering, it will help the problem go away, to
Speaker 1: be forthright about it. And she says, well, if the
Speaker 1: press would stop talking about it, it'll go away. And
Speaker 1: a reporter in the room says, we are the press
Speaker 1: when we come back. The future of NBC's leadership, Harvey
Speaker 1: Weinstein and the me too movement that's right after this, Ronnan,
Speaker 1: were you surprised so many people were willing to help
Speaker 1: you with your reporting? And why do you think they
Speaker 1: were willing to do that? And what does it tell
Speaker 1: you about the atmosphere or the environment inside the corridors
Speaker 1: of NBC News. This book is a tribute and a
Speaker 1: love letter in a lot of ways to fellow reporters,
Speaker 1: and a lot of those reporters are at NBC. I
Speaker 1: admire them tremendously as journalists. Many of them are sources
Speaker 1: in this book, And you know, I fundamentally believe in
Speaker 1: our profession, Katie, I think we're tasked with interrogating the
Speaker 1: truth in as fair away as possible. I think that
Speaker 1: is true of a vast majority of the reporters at
Speaker 1: NBC and that CBS organizations I've done reporting on, and
Speaker 1: they are correctly trying to help along reporters digging into
Speaker 1: this and asking for answers. Did you leave any stories
Speaker 1: about sexual misconduct out because you felt, for legal reasons
Speaker 1: you were unable to report them? Every story I do, Katie,
Speaker 1: there is a wider universe of facts than what makes
Speaker 1: it onto the page. And that is true in an
Speaker 1: especially huge and significant way with a book that you
Speaker 1: actually started as a thousand page draft and then had
Speaker 1: to be whittled down. So there's a whole variety of
Speaker 1: reasons why you don't include certain stories, even if they
Speaker 1: fact check. Um. You know that can be because is
Speaker 1: you feel like you want just one extra layer of corroboration,
Speaker 1: because everything in this had to be so bulletproof. It
Speaker 1: can be because even though it's true, you feel like
Speaker 1: it is unfair or prejudicial in some way to include it.
Speaker 1: This book actually initially ended with a particularly sort of
Speaker 1: personal and withering account of something about one of the
Speaker 1: people that I report on in it. And in the
Speaker 1: end I felt like ending the book on a note
Speaker 1: that is about a person was the wrong move. That
Speaker 1: it had to end on a note that was about
Speaker 1: systems and about big themes. And in fact, you do
Speaker 1: not blame any one person, and you go out of
Speaker 1: your way grown In, after I think you're implored by
Speaker 1: Noah Oppenheim that he is not the villain, you write
Speaker 1: that Noah Oppenheim is not the villain, even though he
Speaker 1: said to you that it was quote, a consensus about
Speaker 1: the organization's comfort level moving forward, and you go on
Speaker 1: to write rown In it was that consensus that stopped
Speaker 1: the reporting that out to lawyers and threats that hempden
Speaker 1: hot and parsed and shrugged, that sat on multiple credible
Speaker 1: allegations of sexual misconduct and disregarded a recorded admission of guilt.
Speaker 1: That anodyne phrase, that language of indifference without ownership, upheld
Speaker 1: so much silence in so many places that protected Harvey
Speaker 1: Weinstein and men like him that yawned and gaped and
Speaker 1: enveloped law firms and PR shops and executive suites and
Speaker 1: industries that swallowed women whole. That to me must for
Speaker 1: you have been one of the most important paragraphs who
Speaker 1: wrote in this book. It was because, Katie, the point
Speaker 1: I'm making there, and that kind of Noah Oppenheim perhaps
Speaker 1: uh not fully wittingly makes in his speech where he
Speaker 1: begs me to to kind of exonerate him in this
Speaker 1: is Yes, there was a specific plot that played out
Speaker 1: here in terms of the contacts between NBC and Harvey Weinstein. Yes,
Speaker 1: there were specific added who's on the parts of these men,
Speaker 1: some of whom have been accused of serious misconduct, and
Speaker 1: their beliefs about whether this issue mattered. But almost more
Speaker 1: than that, Katie, this is also a story about garden
Speaker 1: variety corporate cowardice, and people like Noah Oppenheim who sit
Speaker 1: there and say, I have a boss. There's other people
Speaker 1: making these decisions. I don't know. I got to talk
Speaker 1: to legal. And when you see people passing the buck
Speaker 1: and looking the other way and feeling that there is
Speaker 1: no ownership over decisions at a company, that is what
Speaker 1: creates the situations like the ones we've seen at the
Speaker 1: Weinstein Company, the ones we've seen at am I, the
Speaker 1: ones we've seen at CBS and the ones that we're
Speaker 1: seeing at NBC. The l A Times reports at NBC
Speaker 1: Universal CEO Steep Burke has read your book and continues
Speaker 1: to support Noah Oppenheim. He is in line to succeed
Speaker 1: NBC News chairman Andy Lack, who is seventy two and
Speaker 1: his contract runs through next year. What is your action
Speaker 1: to step Burke's continued support of Noah Oppenheimen What do
Speaker 1: you believe should happen to the men who were making
Speaker 1: these decisions? You know, I'm a reporter, not an activist, Katie,
Speaker 1: and every story that I write, I get a similar question.
Speaker 1: What's gonna happen, What's gonna happen in Harvey Weinstein's criminal trial,
Speaker 1: What's gonna happen to Les Moonvez before he was fired.
Speaker 1: It's not my job to be a part of that conversation.
Speaker 1: My job is to fairly and rigorously interrogate the facts.
Speaker 1: And I am so grateful that incredible journalists inside and
Speaker 1: outside of NBC have taken those facts and pursued them
Speaker 1: further and demanded more transparency and accountability. And my hope
Speaker 1: in writing a book like this is not to get
Speaker 1: anyone fired. It is to prompt a serious and broader
Speaker 1: conversation about the need for accountability in media, the need
Speaker 1: to defend brave sources and brave reporters. I know you
Speaker 1: continue to get hundreds of emails and tips every day. Well,
Speaker 1: we continue to hear me too accusations about other people
Speaker 1: in the media. Are other shoes still likely to drop?
Speaker 1: This story is very much about the bravery of sources.
Speaker 1: It ends not on a note of pessimism and darkness,
Speaker 1: but on one of hope about people continuing to come forward.
Speaker 1: That's true for a reason. My inbox is full of leads,
Speaker 1: and I am so grateful to everyone who entrusts me
Speaker 1: with evidence. I can't promise that I'll always respond to
Speaker 1: every message, but I can promise if you present me
Speaker 1: with something newsworthy, I will. If I can't report on it,
Speaker 1: try to get it to someone else. And there's a
Speaker 1: bigger theme here, Katie, which is the press is not
Speaker 1: bowing to cover ups an intimidation. Sources and whistleblowers are
Speaker 1: not shutting up, and as long as that's the case,
Speaker 1: we've got a shot at transparency and accountability in this country. Finally,
Speaker 1: what is the next step in your view and the
Speaker 1: me too movement. How do we move the conversation forward,
Speaker 1: grown in and see real change implemented at these institutions, organizations, companies,
Speaker 1: not just in media but across all industries. That to
Speaker 1: me is the real question, because you look get some
Speaker 1: of the power structures at some of these organizations, and
Speaker 1: they don't seem to budge. Some have. Susan Zarinsky is
Speaker 1: now president of CBS News, the first female president ever,
Speaker 1: And there's obviously an awakening and a reckoning as everyone
Speaker 1: has talked about. But will institutional change actually follow, and
Speaker 1: how can the conversation encourage that consumers and people like
Speaker 1: us in the media have to call for action and
Speaker 1: for unbudgeable companies to budge. CBS, which you mentioned, is
Speaker 1: a great example of a company that thought there was
Speaker 1: a similar kind of smear campaign against reporting and ultimately
Speaker 1: did have a serious conversation about the need for change
Speaker 1: and did start to enact changes. It's not perfect there,
Speaker 1: but things are shifting. Their need to be reassessments not
Speaker 1: just of leadership but of corporate policies. We are seeing
Speaker 1: companies like Uber pledged to not use n d A
Speaker 1: s with respect to sexual harassment, and in fact, twenty
Speaker 1: six states are now considering Legislator Shan making n d
Speaker 1: as illegal. Yes, so you know, part of uncovering this
Speaker 1: chain of secret settlements at NBC and these nd as
Speaker 1: is about this broader phenomenon where thankfully, legislatures and companies
Speaker 1: are taking a second look at that kind of practice.
Speaker 1: Ronan Pharaoh. The book, if anyone hasn't heard of it
Speaker 1: at this point, is called catching Kill Lies, Spies and
Speaker 1: a Conspiracy to protect predators. Ronan, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Always such a pleasure to talk to you, Katie, thank you.
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