Former NBC News Producer Rich McHugh said an order to pull the plug on an investigation of Harvey Weinstein by Ronan Farrow had come from “the very highest levels of NBC.”
The former Today host prefaces his piece at Mediaite: “I had originally intended to release this in November of 2019, but personal considerations at that time, and later news events impacting us all, delayed those plans. This week The New York Times published a piece that was highly critical of Ronan Farrow’s journalistic methods and standards. Ronan stood by his reporting in response. The Times story prompted me to move forward with my own findings.”
Exclusives
Ronan Farrow’s new book Catch and Kill recounts his investigation of Harvey Weinstein; the hurdles his then-employer NBC News put in his way that caused him to publish the story in The New Yorker instead; and how Weinstein hired an investigative firm to stop him. But Farrow’s most explosive interview in the book is with Brooke Nevils, the former NBC News employee whose complaint about Matt Lauer led to the co-anchor’s firing from Today in 2017.
Ronan Farrow tweeted that NBC News Chairman Andy Lack’s statement contained several false and misleading statements — in particular Lack’s claim that Farrow had no women ready to publicly identify themselves with their accusations against Harvey Weinstein.
Andy Lack, NBC’s news chairman, has sent an exhaustive defense of the network’s handling of Ronan Farrow’s investigation of Weinstein to his staff members, saying any speculation that the disgraced Hollywood mogul had any role in the network’s rejection of the story was baseless. NBC’s decision not to air a story became an embarrassment, and returned to the news last week when Farrow’s former producer publicly criticized the network.
In a statement released late Thursday night, NBC said any assertion that it tried to kill Farrow’s story while he worked on it at NBC News or after he left was “an outright lie.”
At a previously-scheduled town hall meeting for NBC News staffers today, news president Noah Oppenheim said that NBC didn’t feel the Harvey Weinstein story as presented by Ronan Farrow this summer had all the elements needed for airing. He said the notion that NBC would try to cover for a powerful person was deeply offensive.
Ronan Farrow began working on his blockbuster New Yorker story documenting decades of sexual harassment and sexual abuse allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein last December. All of that reporting was for NBC News.
NEW YORK (AP) — A book deal, tabloid attention and now a new television show – it’s a busy time in the public eye for 25-year-old Ronan Farrow. MSNBC announced […]
