Catch And Kill

Ronan Farrow, “Catch and Kill,” Little Brown and Co., 2019, 419 pp.

Catch and Kill is a thought-provoking reminder of the critical role journalism plays in stopping corruption as well as a wake-up call for people like myself.  I had no idea of the prevalence of sexual abuse that goes on in the workplace--in this instance, at Weinstein controlled events as well as the coverup at NBC.  I knew the behavior of Weinstein and financially powerful people like him was a problem—but nowhere near as serious and prevalent a problem as is reported by Ronan Farrow.  Farrow details the stories of 30 women that came forward and were interviewed by him; since publication, the number of women accusing Weinstein has risen from 30 to 80.  The author worked for NBC when doing his research.  But NBC  would not air the story; thankfully his boss told him to sell the story somewhere else—and he did, the NYT published it. 

Of course, the title is also meaningful as it refers to the practice of catching and killing certain stories that influential people want covered up.  NBC’s behavior is surprising to me but not National Enquirer’s handling of the Stormy Danielson affair with our favorite politician and Cohen the lawyer.  If you want the salacious details of Weinstein's, and others, the behavior you will have to read the book--I mostly left these details out of my comments and notes.  This book brings attention to a much needed cultural change regarding how women are treated in the workplace.  

There is a saving-grace at NBC:  Rachel Maddow is so integral to NBC that no-one interferes with her show or tries to catch and kill a story she wants to air.  Credible news agency needs people with this power to maintain integrity, but when that power is held by a Matt Lauer, this can become toxic.  Rachel did interview Ronan Farrow and did not let anyone interfere with the interview.

My Notes:

Pg. xii:  the details in Catch and Kill mostly take place between late 2016 and early 2019.

Pg. 4:  Ronan Farrow’s Mother is Mia Farrow, his Father is Woody Allen.  Ronan’s childhood had been plastered across the tabloids after his father was accused of sexual assault by Ronan’s seven-year-old sister, Dylan, and Allen’s beginning of a sexual relationship with another of his step-sisters, Soon-Yi, who Allen eventually married (Soon-Yi is the adopted daughter of actress Mia Farrow and musician André Previn).  After college, Ronan headed off to Afghanistan and Pakistan as a junior State Department official.  In 2013 he started a four-year deal with NBCUniversal, anchoring a midday show on its cable news channel, MSNBC.  The show was canceled before his contract was completed but he continued at the firm, working for Rich McHugh.

Pg. 18:  American Media Inc.  (AMI): American Media, Inc. (AMI), is an American publisher of magazines, supermarket tabloids, and books based in New York City. Originally affiliated with only the National Enquirer, the media company's holdings expanded considerably in the 1990s and 2000s.

AMI routinely engaged in what employee after employee called ‘blackmail”—withholding the publication of damaging information in exchange for tips or exclusives.  An even darker side of AMI’s operations included a network of subcontractors who were sometimes paid through creative channels to avoid scrutiny, and who sometimes relied on tactics that were hands-on and intrusive. 

According to its September 2018 non-prosecution agreement with Southern District of New York federal prosecutors, AMI "shall commit no crimes whatsoever" for three years, otherwise "A.M.I. shall thereafter be subject to prosecution for any federal criminal violation of which this office has knowledge."

On April 10, 2019, Chatham Asset Management, which controls 80 percent of AMI's stock, forced AMI to sell the National Enquirer. This came after Chatham owner Anthony Melchiorre, who AMI has also relied on for survival, expressed dismay over the tabloid magazine's recent scandals involving hush money assistance to U.S. President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and blackmail of Jeff Bezos. On April 18, 2019, AMI agreed to sell the National Enquirer to Hudson Group.

Pg. 346:  Over the years, AMI had reached deals to shelve reporting around Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Tiger Woods, Mark Wahlberg and too many others to count.

Pg. 354:  As part of its agreement with prosecutors, AMI promised to commit no crimes whatsoever for three years.  Within a year they were attempting to blackmail Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.  Instead of bending to the blackmail, Bezos went public.  In early 2019 as prosecutors circled, the Enquirer and its sister outlets the Globe and the National Examiner were sold for scrap.      

Pg. 395:  The ubiquitous use of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA’s) throughout the media industry played out as the network (NBC) acquiesced to Einstein’s argument that his own similar pacts were ironclad and couldn’t be reported or  violated if the media networks did not likewise allow reporting on sexual harassment in their own industry despite the NDA’s.

Addenda:

Note: as I write this in November 2019, Weinstein is facing criminal charges but is out on $1M bail; his trial is scheduled for January 2020. 

The Weinstein story wasn’t the only time NBC declined to air a story about a powerful man preying on women. They famously sat on the “Access Hollywood” tape in which now-President Donald Trump bragged about assaulting women, a story which The Washington Post ultimately published.  So far, in the wake of the Lauer incident, NBC has only conducted an internal investigation, ultimately putting out a report written by its own lawyers, who claimed there aren’t problems at the company. “Doing an internal investigation is like asking the fox with feathers hanging from its mouth to investigate the missing chickens. I mean, come on,” said Liz Stapp, a professor at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business who studies corporate boards.