Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by schiavenza1981
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow
5.0
Alongside She Said, Catch and Kill is the definitive book about breaking the Harvey Weinstein story, perhaps the most important event in journalism this decade. The broad strokes of both books are the same: Everyone knew Weinstein was a monster, but the producer nevertheless wielded enormous influence and power to suppress the story. The book's authors — She Said's Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, and Catch and Kill's Ronan Farrow — were able to persuade numerous brave women to speak about their experience with Weinstein on the record, thus shattering the silence that had prevailed for decades.
But there's one difference between the two. While Kantor and Twohey had the full institutional backing of their publisher, The New York Times, Farrow, then employed at NBC News, did not. In the first half of Catch and Kill, Farrow recounts how NBC News executives regularly tried to convince him to halt his reporting on the story in spite of the enormous risks Farrow's sources, including actress Rose McGowan, were taking by agreeing to speak on the record. Noah Oppenheim, NBC News' chairman, was particularly obstructionist, at one point even doubting to Farrow that the Weinstein story was even newsworthy at all.
Farrow also faced another, more sinister adversary. Weinstein had retained an Israeli security firm called Black Cube to spy on the journalist, tailing Farrow as he walked around New York and sitting opposite his Upper West Side apartment in a parked car. Eventually, in a plot twist taken straight out of a movie, one of Black Cube's spooks turns on his boss and begins to help Farrow.
We know what happened next: Farrow took his story to The New Yorker, which published it. But that's not all. Soon after losing his job at NBC, Farrow learns that the network spiked his Weinstein story because it was hiding a monster of its own: Today Show host Matt Lauer, who would soon join Weinstein as among the men felled by the #metoo tsunami.
Catch and Kill is an expertly-paced page-turner, showing that Farrow, a former child prodigy who has worked as a lawyer and diplomat as well as a journalist in his 32 years, can also write. (He's also the handsome son of a movie star, the bastard). He describes the personal toll covering the Weinstein story has on his personal life, including his relationship with his boyfriend (now fiancee) Jonathan, better known as former Obama speechwriter and current Pod Save America host Jon Lovett. Most importantly, Farrow is careful to deflect concern for his own well-being to illuminate the enormous personal courage exhibited by the women, including McGowan and Italian actress Asia Argento, who spoke out against Weinstein.
For at least 25 years, everyone in the film industry knew that Harvey Weinstein harassed and abused women. And yet the edifice of power he established — the non-disclosure agreements; the whisper network; the pressure on networks, newspapers, and magazines; the legion of influential defenders; and gobs and gobs of money — protected him from justice. Most insidious, perhaps, is a wide-spread perception that the #metoo movement has somehow gone too far and that powerful men are somehow now the victims. This backlash makes me wonder whether the Weinstein story will represent less a tidal wave of public opinion but rather a temporary blip. I hope I'm wrong.
What I do know is this: Without powerful, well-regarded journalistic institutions, the powerful will never be brought to justice. For all of their flaws, I am relieved that institutions like The New York Times and The New Yorker are alive and well in this treacherous, confusing era.
But there's one difference between the two. While Kantor and Twohey had the full institutional backing of their publisher, The New York Times, Farrow, then employed at NBC News, did not. In the first half of Catch and Kill, Farrow recounts how NBC News executives regularly tried to convince him to halt his reporting on the story in spite of the enormous risks Farrow's sources, including actress Rose McGowan, were taking by agreeing to speak on the record. Noah Oppenheim, NBC News' chairman, was particularly obstructionist, at one point even doubting to Farrow that the Weinstein story was even newsworthy at all.
Farrow also faced another, more sinister adversary. Weinstein had retained an Israeli security firm called Black Cube to spy on the journalist, tailing Farrow as he walked around New York and sitting opposite his Upper West Side apartment in a parked car. Eventually, in a plot twist taken straight out of a movie, one of Black Cube's spooks turns on his boss and begins to help Farrow.
We know what happened next: Farrow took his story to The New Yorker, which published it. But that's not all. Soon after losing his job at NBC, Farrow learns that the network spiked his Weinstein story because it was hiding a monster of its own: Today Show host Matt Lauer, who would soon join Weinstein as among the men felled by the #metoo tsunami.
Catch and Kill is an expertly-paced page-turner, showing that Farrow, a former child prodigy who has worked as a lawyer and diplomat as well as a journalist in his 32 years, can also write. (He's also the handsome son of a movie star, the bastard). He describes the personal toll covering the Weinstein story has on his personal life, including his relationship with his boyfriend (now fiancee) Jonathan, better known as former Obama speechwriter and current Pod Save America host Jon Lovett. Most importantly, Farrow is careful to deflect concern for his own well-being to illuminate the enormous personal courage exhibited by the women, including McGowan and Italian actress Asia Argento, who spoke out against Weinstein.
For at least 25 years, everyone in the film industry knew that Harvey Weinstein harassed and abused women. And yet the edifice of power he established — the non-disclosure agreements; the whisper network; the pressure on networks, newspapers, and magazines; the legion of influential defenders; and gobs and gobs of money — protected him from justice. Most insidious, perhaps, is a wide-spread perception that the #metoo movement has somehow gone too far and that powerful men are somehow now the victims. This backlash makes me wonder whether the Weinstein story will represent less a tidal wave of public opinion but rather a temporary blip. I hope I'm wrong.
What I do know is this: Without powerful, well-regarded journalistic institutions, the powerful will never be brought to justice. For all of their flaws, I am relieved that institutions like The New York Times and The New Yorker are alive and well in this treacherous, confusing era.