Ronan Farrow’s “Catch and Kill,” which was released on Tuesday, details the Pulitzer-winning reporter’s extensive investigation into Harvey Weinstein’s behavior toward women and chronicles his experiences doing so at NBC News, where he first worked on his exposé before taking it to The New Yorker.
NBC News has aggressively denied some of the reporting and details of Farrow’s account of his experiences at the network in the book, which unearths a lot of new material.
Here are some of the highlights:
When NBCUniversal fired former “Today” show host Matt Lauer following an accusation of sexual assault in 2017, the network had repeatedly claimed that it had not been aware of any prior complaints made against Lauer. Throughout 2018, however, Farrow said he learned of “seven claims of sexual misconduct raised by women who worked with Lauer.”
“Most of the women could point to documents or other people they’d told to back up their accounts. Several said they had told colleagues, and believed the network knew about the problem,” Farrow writes.
In a self-reported investigation into Lauer’s workplace conduct, NBCUniversal claimed that it “found no evidence indicating that any NBC News or Today Show leadership, News HR, or others in positions of authority in the News Division received any complaints about Lauer’s workplace behavior prior to November 27, 2017.”
In a letter sent on Monday, the day before the release of “Catch and Kill,” NBC News President Noah Oppenheim denied that the network knew of Lauer’s misconduct prior to 2017. “There is no evidence of any reports of Lauer’s misconduct before his firing, no settlements, no ‘hush money’ — no way we have found that NBC’s current leadership could have been aware of his misdeeds in the past,” Oppenheim wrote. “The only three examples we can find that Farrow alleges are Lauer-related before 2017, with even minimal detail, involve employees who by their own admission made no complaint to management, and whose departure agreements were unrelated to Lauer and completely routine.”
Farrow found a “pattern surrounding women with complaints” in the years after 2011 or 2012 — the time frame that Kim Harris, NBCUniversal’s executive vice president and general counsel, claimed NBC didn’t settle with employees over harassment issues.
During that time, Farrow reported that NBC “brokered nondisclosure agreements with at least seven women who experienced alleged harassment or discrimination within the company.” Though several of these NDAs stemmed from complaints “unrelated to Lauer,” most of them were about other men in positions of power at NBC News, Farrow said.
“When Harris said she was unaware of any harassment settlements, she appeared to be capitalizing on a technicality: many of the payouts were what the network referred to as ‘enhanced severance,’ offered to the women as they left their jobs. But individuals involved — including on the company’s side — disputed that characterization, saying the agreements were designed to restrain women with allegations from speaking,” Farrow wrote.
The agreements also stipulated that the women “waive their right to bring suit” against NBCUniversal, often in exchange for substantial payouts that were “disproportionate to any conventional compensation for departing the company,” according to individuals with knowledge of the transactions who spoke to Farrow.
According to a network spokesman, “NDAs were absolutely standard in all separation agreements at that time.”
Brooke Nevils, a former NBC News producer, comes forward to accuse Matt Lauer of rape.
Nevils, who had previously shared her story anonymously and whose complaint led to Lauer’s termination, spoke on the record with Farrow to detail her interactions with Lauer.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Wrap
