(Image Source: Brigitte Lacombe; Little, Brown and Company)
In 2017, Ronan Farrow released one of the most noteworthy pieces of investigative journalism in recent memory. The piece was entitled “From Aggressive Overtures to Sexual Assault: Harvey Weinstein’s Accusors Tell Their Stories,” and it helped spark the rebirth of the #MeToo movement as well as a takedown of several powerful and perfidious Hollywood abusers. Now, almost two years after his Pulitzer Prize award-winning report was released, he details how Weinstein and other influential figures manage to bury the unseemly stories they don’t want to be released.
The Weinstein story had been journalistic lore for years, yet no one could seem to break the story. The abuse had been going on for years, against a myriad of different women, but no one was ready to come forward. Weinstein’s accusers were systematically silenced. Reporters were systematically silenced. Fear of retaliation mixed with payouts and non-disclosure agreements kept the accusations out of the headlines.
Investigative journalism is, by definition, not an easy job. It often breeds opposition, depending upon the story a journalist researches; freedom of the press, though outlined in the constitution, seemingly does not extend to the grimey corners of Hollywood artifice. Farrow learned this the hard way when he found his real life becoming something of a spy movie after Weinstein got wind of the story Farrow was working on. As outlined in Farrow’s new book Catch and Kill, Weinstein hired an Israeli private intelligence firm called Black Cube to sink any negative reporting on him. This meant that Farrow, working on breaking the story that eventually brought Weinstein’s downfall, was their number one target.
Farrow was followed, his house bugged, his private life infiltrated. He even went as far as hiding his research with a note stating, “Should anything happen to me, please make sure this information is released.”
These tactics are not new, and Weinstein is not the only one to employ them. They are, in fact, a relatively common practice in the world of powerful people with a means to silence others. There’s even a phrase, the namesake of Farrow’s book, known as “catch and kill.” Catch and kill refers to the act of buying or obtaining a story to then bury the contents. In the book, Farrow levels accusations against Donald Trump and American Media Inc. for using such methods to cover up negative press during his presidential campaign. He also includes several other reports such as a further investigation as to why heads at NBC shut down his reporting on the Weinstein story, and why the alleged sexual assault allegations against new anchor Matt Lauer were ignored by the same NBC executives.
Farrow offers a unique and tantalizing look at the world of a prestigious investigative journalist while exposing underlying deceit within our society. His book also explores not only specific cases in which wrongdoing has been covered up but the overarching theme of deceit and misconduct in media. There’s inherent corruption in places we may not even be looking for it, and we need to rely on those heroic enough to expose it.
Sources:
Gross, Terry. “Ronan Farrow: ‘Catch And Kill’ Tactics Protected Both Weinstein And Trump.” NPR, NPR, 15 Oct. 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/10/15/770249717/ronan-farrow-catch-and-kill-tactics-protected-both-weinstein-and-trump.
Farrow, Ronan. Catch and Kill. Little, Brown, 2019.