by Pa Rock
Reader
For the past several days I have been reading Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, the inside story of an investigative reporter who along with several colleagues put their lives and careers at risk while doggedly pursuing a story that ultimately torpedoed one of the biggest names in the film industry as well as several prominent individuals in television news. The book's author is Ronan Farrow, and he was also the central figure in the investigative process that brought down movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, Today Host Matt Lauer, and some other well known names in the news and entertainment industry.
While still a young person by almost anyone's standards (he will be 32 next week), Ronan Farrow has already built a formidable reputation as an investigative journalist and author. The New Yorker magazine shared a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with The New York Times newspaper - an award that was based largely on reporting that Farrow did for The New Yorker which ultimately ended the career of Harvey Weinstein and became a pillar of the "Me Too" movement.
Catch and Kill is an overview of some of the prominent cases involving sexual predators to have hit the press over the past few years, several of which were tied to the efforts of Ronan Farrow, his production partner Rich McHugh, and their news crews. But the primary thrust of the book is the extensive and complex investigation of Weinstein.
The title comes from an old journalistic practice that has only recently begun to be recognized and understood by the general public. Under the practice of "catch and kill" a publication or a particular publisher would buy up certain exposes and stories about prominent individuals and then put those stories aside so that they could do no harm. One notorious example that Farrow touches on is David Pecker, the CEO of American Media, Inc, which publishes the National Enquirer as well as other tabloids. Pecker bought all stories about Donald Trump over several years and then kept them out of print. As a part of the purchase, the people who knew and wrote the stories had to sign agreements to never sell those stories to other news sources. The stories had been "caught" and "killed."
But that was just the tip of an iceberg about how rich and powerful men use their positions and money to commit sex crimes against vulnerable individuals. The men commit their crimes with impunity, and because of their power, the victims are often made to feel responsible for the incidents and powerless to retaliate.
One of the mainstays in Ronan Farrow's reporting on Harvey Weinstein was a Hollywood actress named Rose McGowan. McGowan told Farrow of being raped by Weinstein at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997. In her discussion with the reporter she talked about the complicity of the underlings who propped up their boss in his lecherous attacks. Her remarks are indicative of how hard it is to strike back at a powerful adversary.
And that is the core of this story. The rich and powerful have the means and ability to get away with almost anything. Farrow describes nearly two years of following leads on Weinstein when he was confronted by powerful people whom Weinstein had contacted in an effort to have Farrow's story killed. The reporting was originally being done under the auspices of NBC, but as the piece was nearing completion the news management at the network suddenly pulled the plug on the story. Farrow then took his material to The New Yorker which published it and took in a Pulitzer in the process.
Farrow, who graduated from Bard College with a degree in philosophy at the age of fifteen - and is now an attorney licensed in New York, placed himself at great personal risk in pursuing this story. Weinstein not only attacked him through personal contacts that he had with his employers, he also brought in an elite Israeli spy team to follow Farrow and report on his contacts regarding the story. Once Weinstein knew who was talking to the reporter, he could then turn his attention to threatening the witnesses into silence. After NBC decided to quit pursuing the story, Weinstein took credit among his friends for getting the project killed.
Weinstein also used Ronan Farrow's personal family story of sexual abuse to attack the motives and credibility of the reporter. Farrow, the biological son of actress Mia Farrow and director Woody Allen, survived a very public family explosion as a child when his sister reported that she had been a sexual victim of Woody Allen. As the family was torn apart in the press, Woody Allen moved out and married his step-daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, Ronan Farrow's adoptive sister. Weinstein bellowed loudly that Farrow, with that particular background, was using his reporting as personal therapy and could not be objective.
Fortunately for responsible journalism, The New Yorker magazine thought otherwise.
Catch and Kill is an exceptionally fine piece of investigative journalism, on par with Woodward and Bernstein's All the President's Men. It is an alarming look into the ways that sexual predators operate, often with impunity and absolutely no remorse. They are monsters with power who have no qualms at all about using it.
This book is highly engaging and engrossing. May the author's zeal for justice continue to burn brightly and never be diminished! His work is what Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism looks like!
Reader
For the past several days I have been reading Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, the inside story of an investigative reporter who along with several colleagues put their lives and careers at risk while doggedly pursuing a story that ultimately torpedoed one of the biggest names in the film industry as well as several prominent individuals in television news. The book's author is Ronan Farrow, and he was also the central figure in the investigative process that brought down movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, Today Host Matt Lauer, and some other well known names in the news and entertainment industry.
While still a young person by almost anyone's standards (he will be 32 next week), Ronan Farrow has already built a formidable reputation as an investigative journalist and author. The New Yorker magazine shared a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with The New York Times newspaper - an award that was based largely on reporting that Farrow did for The New Yorker which ultimately ended the career of Harvey Weinstein and became a pillar of the "Me Too" movement.
Catch and Kill is an overview of some of the prominent cases involving sexual predators to have hit the press over the past few years, several of which were tied to the efforts of Ronan Farrow, his production partner Rich McHugh, and their news crews. But the primary thrust of the book is the extensive and complex investigation of Weinstein.
The title comes from an old journalistic practice that has only recently begun to be recognized and understood by the general public. Under the practice of "catch and kill" a publication or a particular publisher would buy up certain exposes and stories about prominent individuals and then put those stories aside so that they could do no harm. One notorious example that Farrow touches on is David Pecker, the CEO of American Media, Inc, which publishes the National Enquirer as well as other tabloids. Pecker bought all stories about Donald Trump over several years and then kept them out of print. As a part of the purchase, the people who knew and wrote the stories had to sign agreements to never sell those stories to other news sources. The stories had been "caught" and "killed."
But that was just the tip of an iceberg about how rich and powerful men use their positions and money to commit sex crimes against vulnerable individuals. The men commit their crimes with impunity, and because of their power, the victims are often made to feel responsible for the incidents and powerless to retaliate.
One of the mainstays in Ronan Farrow's reporting on Harvey Weinstein was a Hollywood actress named Rose McGowan. McGowan told Farrow of being raped by Weinstein at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997. In her discussion with the reporter she talked about the complicity of the underlings who propped up their boss in his lecherous attacks. Her remarks are indicative of how hard it is to strike back at a powerful adversary.
"McGowan described a system - of assistants and managers and industry power brokers - that she furiously accused of complicity. She said staffers averted their eyes as she walked into the meeting, and out of it. (The meeting where she said Weinstein sexually attacked her.). 'They wouldn't look at me,' she said. 'They looked down, these men. They wouldn't look at me in the eye.' And she remembered her costar in 'Phantoms,' Ben Affleck, seeing her visibly distraught immediately after the incident, and hearing where she'd just come from, and replying, 'God damn it I told him to stop doing this!'"After the bravery of McGowan and a few others in stepping forward, the dam eventually burst, and now more than eighty women have come forward to tell of their own assaults by Weinstein.
And that is the core of this story. The rich and powerful have the means and ability to get away with almost anything. Farrow describes nearly two years of following leads on Weinstein when he was confronted by powerful people whom Weinstein had contacted in an effort to have Farrow's story killed. The reporting was originally being done under the auspices of NBC, but as the piece was nearing completion the news management at the network suddenly pulled the plug on the story. Farrow then took his material to The New Yorker which published it and took in a Pulitzer in the process.
Farrow, who graduated from Bard College with a degree in philosophy at the age of fifteen - and is now an attorney licensed in New York, placed himself at great personal risk in pursuing this story. Weinstein not only attacked him through personal contacts that he had with his employers, he also brought in an elite Israeli spy team to follow Farrow and report on his contacts regarding the story. Once Weinstein knew who was talking to the reporter, he could then turn his attention to threatening the witnesses into silence. After NBC decided to quit pursuing the story, Weinstein took credit among his friends for getting the project killed.
Weinstein also used Ronan Farrow's personal family story of sexual abuse to attack the motives and credibility of the reporter. Farrow, the biological son of actress Mia Farrow and director Woody Allen, survived a very public family explosion as a child when his sister reported that she had been a sexual victim of Woody Allen. As the family was torn apart in the press, Woody Allen moved out and married his step-daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, Ronan Farrow's adoptive sister. Weinstein bellowed loudly that Farrow, with that particular background, was using his reporting as personal therapy and could not be objective.
Fortunately for responsible journalism, The New Yorker magazine thought otherwise.
Catch and Kill is an exceptionally fine piece of investigative journalism, on par with Woodward and Bernstein's All the President's Men. It is an alarming look into the ways that sexual predators operate, often with impunity and absolutely no remorse. They are monsters with power who have no qualms at all about using it.
This book is highly engaging and engrossing. May the author's zeal for justice continue to burn brightly and never be diminished! His work is what Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism looks like!
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