May 19, 2026 • 36 mins
Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey are the New York Times reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein story. For five months -- perpetually in danger of losing the scoop -- they cultivated and cajoled sources ranging from the Weinsteins’ accountant to Ashley Judd. The article that emerged on October 5th, 2017, was a level-headed and impeccably sourced exposé, whose effects continue to be felt around the world. Their conversation with Alec covers their reporting process, and moves on to a joint wrestling with Alec’s own early knowledge of one of the Weinstein allegations, and his ongoing friendship with accused harasser James Toback. The guests ask Alec questions about the movie industry’s ethics about sex and “the casting couch.” Over a respectful and surprising half-hour, host and guests together talk through the many dilemmas posed by the #MeToo movement that Kantor and Twohey did so much to unleash.
Originally aired January 21st, 2020.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Jody Canter and Megan Towey are the New York Times
reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein story for five months,
perpetually in danger of losing the scoop, they cultivated and
cajoled sources ranging from the Weinstein's accountant to Ashley Judd.
(00:27):
The article that emerged on October fifth, twenty seventeen, was
a level headed and impeccably sourced expose whose effects continue
to be felt around the world. Canter and Tuhey documented
twenty five years of sexual abuse, harassment, and exploitation by
(00:47):
one of the most important producers in the history of Hollywood.
The story put a definitive end to his career and
his company. It has also shaken the lives of some
of those who supported and defended him, like lawyer Lisa Bloom,
who until last year had followed the path of her
(01:07):
feminist mother, Gloria Allread in representing victims. And just as clearly,
the reporters documented the loose network of business and creative
interests that enabled rape, harassment, and casting couch coercion. They
revealed to America the culture in Hollywood that knew about
(01:28):
all of this and disapproved but expected individual women victimized
and isolated to bear the burden of exposing the powerful
men who humiliated them themselves. But before any of the fallout,
Jodi Canter and Megan Tooey had to source up.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
One of the first daunting tasks was to try to
get in touch with these famous actresses. But Megan and
I were like, we don't know any actresses, you know,
and getting We're sitting there saying, okay, how do you
get you know? Ashley Judd's phone.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Was the path to Ashley Judge you you can you
talk about that? Well?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That one was pretty easy because Nick Christoph knew her
and NIW Christoph the opinion columnist at the Times. But
we felt strongly that we could not go through publicists
or agents because they're gatekeepers. They're just going to shut
everything down. We wanted to reach the actresses directly, and
so the questions were, you know, how do you reach
these people? And even if you get them on the phone,
(02:23):
what are you going to say in the first forty
five seconds of that phone conversation to earn some trust
and keep the conversation going. So actually that's sort of
the origin of my partnership with Megan, because Megan was
on maternity leave, but she had been a sex crimes
reporter for a long time and she had done the
reporting where on Donald Trump and women for The Times.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
I worked at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, I worked at
the Chicago Tridren and I've been at The Times a
year and a half. I came into The Times in
twenty sixteen to join the team that was doing coverage
of the twenty sixteen presidential race. So I had done
these stories about Trump and his treatment of women, and
after he was at had been part of the coverage
(03:02):
of his when we were first looking at the ties
between him and Russia. So I had been doing that
work up until the March of twenty seventeen, when I
had a baby and went on maternity leave. And so
it was while I was on maternity leave that Jody
started the Weinsteine investigation and sort of called me. We
didn't even know each other, and she called me and said,
I know you've done stories in the past about victims
(03:22):
of sex crimes, and I know you did reporting with
some of the women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
Do you have any suggestions of what to say when
you're knocking on these doors and picking up the phone
and calling people into asking them to open up about
these painful experiences in their past.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So when Megan and I were on the phone, she
suggested a kind of argument that she had used with
victims in the past, which is to say to them
very early in the conversation, look, I can't change what's
happened to you in the past, but if we work together,
maybe we can take the pain that you experienced and
put it to some constructive purpose will help other people.
(04:01):
And when Megan said that, it was like something clicked
for me because it's the best reason to talk to
a journalist. And also, so many people fear that talking
to a journalist is a bad thing, like oh, it's traitorous,
or you're a tattle tale, or you're complaining or whatever.
And what we like to do is redefine it as
a more noble thing. You are doing this to have
a constructive impact on society. It is may be very difficult,
(04:25):
but our goal is to do something that you can
eventually feel very proud of. And so that was really
that was really the beginning of our beginning of our partnership.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
In your book, you write about Lisa Bloom, this is
all Red's daughter. I'm wondering someone like that. What does
she think she's doing. Does she go to bed every
night and sit there and go, aha, we're pulling a
fast one and everyone as I'm doing all this work
for Harvey? Well, does she think she's doing something else?
What does she tell herself? Do you think?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I mean, maybe there will be a day where Lisa
Bloom comes into a studio and sits down and opens
up her heart art and tells us what she's been
thinking and feeling and why and why it was. I mean,
what we can tell you is that she did something
remarkable in twenty sixteen. She has been one of the
most prominent feminist attorneys in the country, worked with countless
(05:14):
victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault, and in twenty
sixteen crossed over to the other side. Why do you
think she has said that she thought that he only
engaged in inappropriate comments towards women, and that she wanted
to help him, go work with him to help him apologize.
You know, we obtained in the course of the reporting
for this book, these confidential records that showed she had
(05:34):
much deeper knowledge of the serious allegations against him, and
that she played a much darker role. I mean, she
was not honest about the work she did for him.
We've got the billing records, the memo in which she
spells out all the underhanded tactics she's going to use
to help him undermine his accusers, and she's basically saying,
I'm going to use all my experience working with victims
(05:54):
and harness that and use it with you to work
against them. And so was it about money? I mean,
what we know for sure is that she had done
a deal with Weinstein. She wanted she had a book
that he was going to turn into a movie about
Trayvon Martin. But beyond that, I mean, we don't we
She has not opened up. And when we when we
sought comment from her for this book, I mean, we
(06:16):
wouldn't publish, you know, we published that memo that she
wrote to him spelling out exactly what she was going
to do for him, which really contradicts her public comments
about what the role that she played and why she
went to go work for him in its entirety, so
that readers could see for themselves what she was saying
in her own words and doing at the time. But
when we presented her with that, she she refused to comment.
(06:37):
She said that, you know, she that she was going
to abide by attorney client privilege as you know, into
the future journey.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Look, I think you're asking the right question, which is
you've got one of the most famous feminist attorneys in
the country. She's Gloria Alred's daughter. She's been advertising herself
as a victim's writes attorney and a fighter for women
for all of these years, and she makes what we
know is a very intentional decision to cross the line
(07:10):
and work for Harvey Weinstein. And we know it's intentional
because of the memo that Megan just described. This is
her job audition memo, and in it she's saying, I
will smear on your behalf, I will manipulate on your behalf.
So the question is what led her over? You know what?
Did she genuinely not believe the women she represented over
(07:33):
the years?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Was she.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Did she think that Rose McGowan was just making it
all up? Et cetera, et cetera. So we can't look,
you know, she's not here. We don't have a crystal ball,
et cetera, et cetera. But here's what we can tell you,
because this also applies to David Boys, the other super lawyer,
the Renewal, the renowned litigator who did Bush v. Gore
(07:58):
and helped get gay marriage established. Here's the common denominator
that Bloom and Boys have in going to work for Weinstein.
They both wanted to be in the movie business. I know, Bloom,
so blooms, but Bloom.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
We're called because it's not what it's cracked up to be.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, Bloom writes this book called Suspicion Nation about Trayvon
Martin and gets very excited because Harvey Weinstein and Jay
Z option it to turn it into a film. Boys,
for all of his vast, fast, fast legal success, what
does he really want to do, at least in part,
is be in the movies. He's got interests in the
movie business. His daughter was an budding actress and wanted roles.
(08:38):
And we even obtained an email in which you've got
Harvey sort of setting her up for a part in
one of his films. And so, I mean, I think
so much of this story, and this was part of
my original draw to It is about, like, what is
the power that these movies have on all of us? Right?
Because it because that's the way Weinstein got everybody to
(09:03):
do what he wanted. That was the source of his power,
not just in luring people like boys in Bloom.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
You're going to pull him into my magnetic view.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Exactly, but also with the women, right, I mean, this
was all about work. Look, it's really important to remember
that there are two categories of women essentially that Weinstein
allegedly harasses and assaults. One of them actresses. The second
assistance women who want to be producers, right, women who
(09:31):
are twenty three years old, and they're so excited because
they're on there.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
At the bottom of a ladder, very first.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Day at a company like Mirror Max or the Weinstein Company.
This is going to be their big shot. It's so exciting,
there's so much potential here. And then boom, Harvey Weinstein
walks into the room and everything changes. And so this
is all about the actresses and the assistants.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Both.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
They're coming into this with with dreams, with ideas, with ambitions,
with hopes, and he turns those hopes and ambitions against
the women. And that has to do also with the
power of the movie. Is the power of this work?
You know, what is your ticket into this world? And
how can that? You know, is your desire for entry
(10:12):
into this world a kind of vulnerability that can then
be turned against you?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
You could?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
You don't?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I mean, I hope I phrased this the right way,
which is that I want to believe. I'm assuming in
your work you on earthed some things about Weinstein that
were compelling, seductive, like when people were around him, there
had to be something about him that facilitated the whole
event that would happen with some of these people. He
was a towering figure of accomplishment in the movie business.
(10:38):
He was a savant who knew everything there is to
know about every aspect on the deepest level of movie making,
movie production, movie development, movie distribution. There are very few
people There are almost none. The only equal Weinstein has
is Spielberg in terms of knowing everything there is to
know about developing, casting sets, everything and most importantble selling
(11:03):
that movie and marketing that movie, and that awards matrix
that he dominated for so long. People thought Weinstein was
a genius.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Well, we certainly witnessed Weinstein in action. We interviewed him
several times he came into The New York Times for
sit down interviews strike you, and he was. I think
that we were able to see in person that this
sort of range of this this sort of the spectrum
of his behavior that he would swing from kind of
(11:35):
charm and compliments and kind of ingratiating himself and like, well,
the New York Times, it's the best paper in the world,
and you know, let me tell you a story about it.
What a huge fan I am of the New York Times.
In terms of how he was able to pray on women,
I think that that is a separate question from how
he was able to sort of keep people in his
orbit and maintain his power. That really is one of
(11:58):
the most important questions is that they're were actually people
who got glimpses of his alleged misconduct over the years,
and what did they do about it? And how can
we explain the fact that there were so many individuals
and institutions, including his own companies, that became complicit in
his abuse. And what we were able to see is
that he kind of employed a variety of personality traits
(12:20):
from you know, sort of charm machine to threatening to
lashing out to manipulation, to bullying, and he seemed to
kind of pull these out of his pocket at various
times to try to get what he had wanted. And
I think that that he had been able to use
that we in our book were able to report out
this remarkable two years in his own company in twenty fourteen.
(12:44):
In twenty fifteen, when there were more and more allegations
coming to the surface that you know, people high up
in the company, including his own brother Bob Weinstein, saw
he was among the people who wanted to do something
and wanted to intervene, and Weinstein was really to use
a variety of tactics to ultimately shut down these efforts
(13:04):
of accountability.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Reporters Jodi Kanter and Megan Tuwhey Me Too is the
most prominent of several hashtags that helped start a movement
in the real world. Another was no Ban, No Wall,
inspired by President Trump's Muslim ban. My guest, Becca Heller
is the activist who organized help for travelers in the crosshairs.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
And I was like, holy shit, this ban comes down.
Whenever that is, there's going to be thousands of people
who are in the air who had legal permission to
enter the US when they took off and are going
to land essentially as undocumented, and nobody knows what's going
to happen to them. So we emailed our network and
organized lawyers to go to every international air property lawyers.
We organized sixteen hundred and then I don't know how many,
(13:52):
and ultimately ended up being I mean thousand thousands.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Multiple folks.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
My full interview with Becca Heller is in our archive
a Here's the Thing dot Org. I'm Alec Baldwin back
(14:18):
now with reporters Jodi Kanter and Megan Twey.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I've never really worked with anyone who has had this
strong and internal compass, and I think that compass has
just like pulled us forward again and again and again.
I think also that Megan is very exacting. God is
in the details. I get that, you know, God is
in the details on these stories, and I you know,
(14:44):
I hope our sources feel the same way I do,
which is that like when I'm in Meghan's hands, I
just feel like I'm working with a like a world
class surgeon or something, because the level of precision is
so incredibly high. I feel Megan's incredible compassion and empathy
for victims, but like kind of wrapped in this rigor
(15:05):
that only makes it better because it's not It's not
about sitting around and crying, you know, that's the role
of a psychologist or a friend. It's about having the
strength and the force to make the story really, really
work and make people feel safe through the power and
the strength of the journalism. And then I think the
(15:28):
final thing I would say is that I see a
relentlessness and an understanding of the psychology of how to
get people to give you information.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
When this is for Megan, when Jodi Canter comes out
of the bullpen and she's head into the mound, what
are her? What is the better afraid of? What pitches
does she have in her repertoire?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I would say, I think that there's one word that
comes to mind when I think of Jody, which is persistence,
like you know, heaven, Like I sort of pity the
person who's trying to get between you know, Jody and
the information that she's pursuing, and she is just she's
just a total bulldog. And it's no surprise that you know,
(16:14):
there was there was a there was sort of a
deep throat figure in the Weinstein investigation. Irwin Ryder was
in the top orbit of executives by Weinstein's side for
years and ended up actually, over the course of a
series of secretive meetings with Jody Canter, ended up providing
(16:34):
all this information about the harm that Weinstein was doing
to women in the company. And ultimately why, well, I
think because he was he was in the hands of
Jody Canter.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
No, no, no, that's not true. No he didn't because.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
No, excuse me, I'm sorry, No, I will, I will,
I will correct that this was somebody who had seen wrongdoing,
had become increasingly concerned about it, had tried to do
things to hold the boss accountable to no avail. And
so when Jody came knocking, was I think inclined to
do something, but the extent to which I mean Jody
(17:08):
from the first email she sent to him, through the
meetings that she had with him in secret in Tribeca,
she was able to ultimately get him to not only
start to tell her about what was going on within
the company, but ultimately provide her with an internal record,
a complaint that had been filed as recently as twenty
(17:29):
fifteen that spelled out all these extensive allegations of sexual
harassment and abuse in the company, and it really is
just one of the many ways in which her persistence
has paid off time and time again.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Jody, how'd you get him to do it?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I'll tell you the story, Irwin was it at first
very nervous. He grew a little more comfortable. You know.
We were meeting late at night in September of twenty
seventeen at the restaurant Little Park in Tribecca. I was like,
why does he want to meet in the middle of
Tribeca in a fancy restaurant, But that was spot we
always met in the same place. And he was telling
(18:03):
me a lot. But this is what sources do, right,
the very few of them sort of like tell the
story in order and will know exactly what's relevant and
what's not relevant. So he's telling us all this different stuff,
and every few nights I'm meeting with him, I'm taking
everything back to Megan, and we're by day we're trying
to track it down, nail it down, and I mean
(18:23):
a lot of it is checking out. And there was
this memo that he had mentioned a few times, but
I didn't know how significant it was. And he had
read me a few lines from the memo, and we
just thought that there might be more there. So I'm
sitting there and we're having our glasses of wine, and
I said to him, will you pull up that memo
(18:44):
on your phone again? So he pulls it up on
his phone, and I really, I think I just wanted
to like maybe get a couple of words right or something.
And he looks at me and he says, I'm going
to go to the little boys room now, and he
hands me his phone. So it's like he's telling me
without explicitly telling me, take this document now. You never
(19:07):
want to forward it to yourself, right, because that's going
to leave a digital trail from his email address to mine.
So instead, I'm, you know, like sitting there at the bar,
you know, when you have these moments in life, when
you're stating to your phone, don't have a technical problem,
like please, I just need my phone to work for
like the next ten minutes. Yeah, exactly. So, So his
(19:28):
phone is in my lap and I'm holding my phone
over my lap, and I'm careful to scroll so I
don't like miss any lines, and I'm screenshotting every page
of this memo, but I still don't know what's in
it because I have to work really fast because I'm
trying to, like, you know, be all smooth. So anyway,
he comes back from the bathroom a minute later and
(19:48):
his phone is sitting and waiting for him on his chair,
and you know, we go through the rest of our
drink state. But the second he leaves, we say goodbye,
and he's like, I'll walk you out, and I'm like, now,
you know what, I'm going to go to the lady's room.
So I go to the lady's room and that's when
I send the memo to Megan and Rebecca, and then
I walk outside in a hail cab and that's when
(20:11):
I actually read the mamo. And the woman who wrote it,
Lauren O'Connor, on top of being a very talented junior executive,
she's a powerful writer. And so that memo said things
like the balance of power at this company is Harvey
Weinstein ten me zero. So it's sort of like we've
been piecing together these allegations from you know, twenty five
(20:34):
or thirty year time period. And remember the earliest allegation,
the earliest settlement we've documented that Weinstein has paid is
nineteen ninety. Think about how early that is nineteen ninety.
Lauren O'Connor. She's writing this memo in twenty fifteen, and
yet it's describing some of the same things the women
(20:54):
had experienced in nineteen ninety in the late nineties, like,
for example, she's describing an incident at the Peninsula in
Beverly Hills. Well Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow have told
us about being sexually harassed at the Peninsula in Beverly
Hills by Weinstein, but their stories take place in the
mid to late nineties. So it's like this sense of
how long has this guy been doing this and we've
(21:17):
got to publish this story because nobody else has stopped him.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
We're taking a break.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
Stay with us, both of you.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
If I'm not mistaken. You both have a daughter.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Jody has two, I have one.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
You have one daughter. You have two daughters, and I
have an older daughter Io was twenty three, and I
have a younger daughter who's six. And my wife and
I from time to time think about what kind of
a world will they interact with in the future.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
We think about that question every day. And the founding
thing is that everything's changed and nothing's changed, and I
still don't have the answer changed. The laws, the structures,
the systems, the govern how we all behave they just
haven't changed. It, like the difficulty of reporting one of
(22:18):
these incidents. Maybe there's a little less social stigma, but
it's not fundamentally different than it was two years ago.
Federal sexual harassment laws in this country are so weak.
If you're a freelancer, you're not covered. If you work
for a workplace that has fewer than fifteen employees, you're
not covered. So there have been a couple of adjustments
to the law on the state level, but like the
(22:39):
fundamental rules of our society have barely changed. So with
respect to your question about kids, I think about our kids,
and I think about grandkids, and I think, you know,
what are we going to tell them about this period.
Are we going to say, you know, wow, Megan and
I published this story and found ourselves, you know, at
ground zero of a historic shift, and we can see
(23:02):
the effects of that, you know, to this day, and
it really was a window of change. Or are we
going to say, well, you know, it's sort of kind
of an extraordinary period and a whole bunch of men
were fired, but you know, not that much fundamentally shifted.
And then will the kids and grandkids say, oh, yeah,
that's you know, sexual harassment. It still happens at my
workplace all the time. It happens at my you know,
(23:25):
the restaurant where I wait tables during the summer. Or
are they gonna look at us and say, oh my god.
It used to be okay for male bosses to hit
on younger female subordinates who they held workplace power over.
It used to be okay in a restaurant for the
(23:45):
male manager to grope the waitress right like they they
they may they may say, wait a second. People in Hollywood,
like they just joked about the casting couch and they
just acep, did it as a routine part of their business.
And will they feel a kind of shock at what
used to be tolerated.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Well, I want to get to that in a minute,
about the willingness factor, where now that they're willing, but
men believe sometimes that they're willing. Megan, tell me about
your crystal ball into the future.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
If you will my crystal Ball in the future. I mean,
you know, we are so we are so immersed in
the reporting process a day in and day out. You know,
the first day, right after the Weinstein story broke and
it started to take off. I mean, we had never
anticipated that. Two nights before we went to you know,
we went to publish, Jody and I actually stepped back.
(24:38):
We'd been working around the clock, and we actually shared
a cab back to Brooklyn at about one o'clock in
the morning, and in that silent moment, turned to each
other and said, do you think anybody's going to read
this story? Does anybody know who Harvey Weinstein is? Is
anybody going to care? So? I think if you're looking
for like signs that we were predictors of the future,
that's certainly not the case.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Is not the case, but it is instinct women and mothers.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, I mean I think that I, you know, I
think that it's not I would say that that, you know,
I think that you're actually asking the question in a
pretty within a pretty narrow framework. I think that we've
found among our sort of male friends and colleagues that
they are just as concerned, and parents of sons, I
think are just as invested in this issue. And I
(25:23):
think that you talk to parents of daughters and sons,
they will tell you that they really want to make
sure that we are able to figure out emerge from
this moment with some sort of agreed upon standards that
make sure that everybody is treated fairly and receives adequate protections,
and that that that it's a safe world for you know,
the girls and the boys.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Now I've got three boys, a four year old, a
three year old, and a one year old. I mean,
I want to go from that tangent, but it's it's
really remarkable how this plays into that I'm saying to
my son and going, you know, don't touch anybody without
their permission. That's true, they don't boy with But I
was filming a documentary film with Jimmy Toback, who is
a dear friend of mine, and in terms of sexual harassment,
(26:07):
there's a whole pile of.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Hundreds of women have accused him, right.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Jimmy's one of those people who believe that if my
batting average is ten percent, I need to hit on
a thousand women. I'm not excusing his behavior, but Jimmy's
somebody who I had this deep intellectual exploration with about
films we were going to do. We developed a bunch
of projects together. There were very few people in the
world you could have the kind of conversation about movie
making you could have with Jimmy, and he was a
(26:34):
very dear, dear friend of mine. And then all this
stuff comes up where they say he actually physically assaulted
Selma Blair. Now, when someone is your friend, you tend
to give it some credence. I am the south Shore
Long Island, middle class white boy than I am someone
who your friend.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Well, right, I mean, like, look, if your best friend
was convicted of murder, would you visit that person in jail?
That's like a it's a legit moral conundrum, right. I
think plenty of us are friends with people who have
done terrible things wrong, and that's an interesting decision, right,
Like do his sins against other people? There are arguments
(27:12):
for and against that preventing you from having a friendship
with them.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
But you know, Harvey Winson is different. I never did
business with Harvey. You know, years ago people would say
blahbady blah and Oscars and this and the Weinstein Company
and Mira maxim Any raped Rose McGowan, like everybody knew that.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
So what do you think explains that? Why do you
think that people in your world were able to accept
that first but that's beft talking point.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
But I think that that's what I myself would not
use that word, except because when I did the movie
The Aviator that Harvey produced, I didn't even know he
was involved. Scorsese himself called me, and when Marty calls you,
you go. I arrived on the set in Montreal to
discover that Harvey was one of the producers, but he
was never there. So I do highlight the fact that
that accept is not the word. I mean nobody that
(27:59):
I know, except anything about him.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I was so curious about something you said a minute ago,
which is when you were talking about to back, you
did something really interesting, which is you kept alternating between
the past and the present in terms of talking about
whether he is your friend or not. You said he
was my friend, he is my friend. He was my friend,
he is my friend, So would you still call him
your friend. I'm just curious.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yes, I don't know that he's sexually assaulted women in auditions.
I don't know that. I don't know that well.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
But to go back to your sort of distinction of
you know, it sounds like you're paying close attention to
this single criminal allegation and his denial of a crime.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
No, I'm only saying that there's gradations here, and I
think that what Weinstein did was far where and he
had the power to do.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
There are also gradations of the victims, right. I mean
that in the case of Weinstein, he was allegedly praying
on well known, famous actresses as well as you know,
lowly assistants in his companies. You know, the type of
twenty three year olds that you wouldn't recognize if you
pass them on the street, you know who for the
most part, had sort of disappeared without a trace, without
you know, ever becoming public before this. And so the
(29:07):
question there, I think for you is some aside these
dozens of other women who have come forward, they may
not be famous, but you know, I think it's still
worth learning those allegations and knowing them.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Here's what I think would be a really interesting exercise.
The James Tobek coverage was mainly done by the La Times.
That's my impression. Yes, I would go back and read
those stories and listen to the women because it sounds
like you may have missed something really important, which is
the sort of audition factor.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Involved can bring charges against Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, remember you're saying charges, which is a criminal word.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Any civil cases brought against Jimmy by those women, I
don't know.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
We'd have to go back and check, because again it
was the LA Times reporting, not ours. But I guess
what I'm saying is I think it's worth really listening
to the women's experiences. Even with the stories that are
allegations of sexual harassment and not violent sexual assault, there's
a harm that's real, even if it isn't physical, which
(30:14):
has to do with work, and it can play out
over a very long time. Let's talk about Weinstein, because
those are you know, those are the victims we have
interviewed the most thoroughly. When you talk to women who
have really terrible stories of sexual harassment by Weinstein, part
of what a lot of them feel now is a
sense of loss and grief because even though you know
(30:36):
he's been outed, and even though even though there's a
sense of sort of like communal accountability towards him, even
though the world now knows about so many of these
women's stories, what a lot of them say is that,
you know, I can never be twenty three years old again.
I can never go audition for those movies I can
(30:58):
never have my first job in film again, and my
whole life is different because of the way he treated me.
And there's really nothing that can ever change that.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Jody, how long have you worked at the Times?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I've been there a long time, like fifteen years long,
ten years?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, And how would you describe the sexual harassment policies
of the Times? Do you nobody sexually harassed anybody at
the Times?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
I'll tell you what, Alec. I wouldn't because that is
not my job and that is not Megan's job. The
Times has like a whole hr apparatus, and all these
editors and leaders.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Who deal with that you find satisfactory.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, because, first of all, listen, everybody has been affected
by me too. I don't think there's an organization, including
we're sitting here at WNYC, which has had its own
issues over time. Every organization is affected by this. It's
close to all of us. There have been issues at
the Times, but Megan and I have been very careful
not to get involved in any of them because we've
got to do our jobs. And our jobs is, you know,
(31:57):
we're not the internal cops at the Times. Our job
is to uncover this information. You know, you can't solve
a problem you can.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Do you see, maybe there's an odd component to that
where you want me to make sure I examine Jimmy
Ktotoback in relation to Weinstein as carefully as I should.
But you don't think you need to examine the Times
as carefully as Mira Max or Weinstein films.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
No, because we like I mean, I was just curious
about your personal relationship with him and your friendship. So
I was really I was just really asking a question.
But I don't think it'll work context Megan and I
bear there are people at the Times who bear actual
responsibility for making sure that we have sound policies for
preventing and addressing this kind of behavior.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
That is not Megan or I would you have a
comment about that, Megan.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Yeah, I mean there have been a variety of cases
that have played out at the New York Times that
have been investigated, and some have resulted in people leaving
the Times. Some have reulted people being placed on probation.
Like it is what's clear to us, and we don't
know the details of those cases, but we know, like
we there is evidence of accountability playing out throughout our
(33:11):
own organization and you know, what we can say beyond
that is just that when it comes to the reporting
on sexual harassment and sexual assault at the New York Times,
that you know, we have had the support of editors
and beyond straight up to the very top of the organization.
You know, this was not this is not work that's
done just by just by women. This is you know,
(33:31):
male editors, the you know, male publishers. Our investigations straddled
the passing of the baton of of the publishers. Both
men were like one hundred percent in support of this.
And and so we you know, we we we feel
lucky to live to work in an organization that has
been willing to put so many resources behind this type
of work.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
What do you think men now need to learn about
how to say to you, I'm attracted to you. Is
that all going to change now? Should it change?
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Well? Listen, I think that there's agreement that there is
a hunger for kind of a clearer sense of what
the guidelines should be in the workplace, but within dating
and more broadly, in relations of men and women. There's
no question that everybody can have sexually satisfying lives and
romantic lives normal while also figuring out how to treat
(34:22):
each other with respect. And I think that that's you know,
I think that the worst thing that could happen is
that people don't talk about these issues, and if they're not,
whether it's with their kids or their their partners or
in the workplace. But and also in these interviews, you know,
like we're just so grateful that you were willing to
talk to us about, for example, your relationship with Tobac,
and like, thank you for engaging with us.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
But that doesn't mean I don't have work to do,
which you've reminded me of that again. I mean, I'm
going to go back and read those La Times pieces
and I'm going to contact the writer, the principal writer
of that see feel he'll come do the show and
talk about that.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I think that's a great idea. I would also just
say that I think it's really important to wreck that
this is really abuse of power. This is not just
a sort of sexual preference or a tool that's being
used by unattractive guys because they wouldn't otherwise be able
to get redmen. Yeah, that this is abusive power.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I want to end by saying that this was one
of the more difficult and on my part, least successful
interviews I've ever done. Both of these writers know their subject,
and my own grasp of the me too issue is
in need of further research. The writer they refer to
(35:38):
from the La Times is Glenn Whip, and we will
surely invite him on in soon. In the meantime, the
friction between believe the victim and innocent until proven guilty continues.
Thanks to Jodi Kanter and Megan Towey, I am reminded
(35:59):
that we are never done re examining this issue and
our own relationship to it. Their book about their Weinstein
reporting and its fallout is called she said out Now
from Penguin Press. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing. Is
brought to you by iHeart Radio
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Jody Canter and Megan Towey are the New York Times
reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein story for five months,
perpetually in danger of losing the scoop, they cultivated and
cajoled sources ranging from the Weinstein's accountant to Ashley Judd.
(00:27):
The article that emerged on October fifth, twenty seventeen, was
a level headed and impeccably sourced expose whose effects continue
to be felt around the world. Canter and Tuhey documented
twenty five years of sexual abuse, harassment, and exploitation by
(00:47):
one of the most important producers in the history of Hollywood.
The story put a definitive end to his career and
his company. It has also shaken the lives of some
of those who supported and defended him, like lawyer Lisa Bloom,
who until last year had followed the path of her
(01:07):
feminist mother, Gloria Allread in representing victims. And just as clearly,
the reporters documented the loose network of business and creative
interests that enabled rape, harassment, and casting couch coercion. They
revealed to America the culture in Hollywood that knew about
(01:28):
all of this and disapproved but expected individual women victimized
and isolated to bear the burden of exposing the powerful
men who humiliated them themselves. But before any of the fallout,
Jodi Canter and Megan Tooey had to source up.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
One of the first daunting tasks was to try to
get in touch with these famous actresses. But Megan and
I were like, we don't know any actresses, you know,
and getting We're sitting there saying, okay, how do you
get you know? Ashley Judd's phone.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Was the path to Ashley Judge you you can you
talk about that? Well?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That one was pretty easy because Nick Christoph knew her
and NIW Christoph the opinion columnist at the Times. But
we felt strongly that we could not go through publicists
or agents because they're gatekeepers. They're just going to shut
everything down. We wanted to reach the actresses directly, and
so the questions were, you know, how do you reach
these people? And even if you get them on the phone,
(02:23):
what are you going to say in the first forty
five seconds of that phone conversation to earn some trust
and keep the conversation going. So actually that's sort of
the origin of my partnership with Megan, because Megan was
on maternity leave, but she had been a sex crimes
reporter for a long time and she had done the
reporting where on Donald Trump and women for The Times.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
I worked at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, I worked at
the Chicago Tridren and I've been at The Times a
year and a half. I came into The Times in
twenty sixteen to join the team that was doing coverage
of the twenty sixteen presidential race. So I had done
these stories about Trump and his treatment of women, and
after he was at had been part of the coverage
(03:02):
of his when we were first looking at the ties
between him and Russia. So I had been doing that
work up until the March of twenty seventeen, when I
had a baby and went on maternity leave. And so
it was while I was on maternity leave that Jody
started the Weinsteine investigation and sort of called me. We
didn't even know each other, and she called me and said,
I know you've done stories in the past about victims
(03:22):
of sex crimes, and I know you did reporting with
some of the women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
Do you have any suggestions of what to say when
you're knocking on these doors and picking up the phone
and calling people into asking them to open up about
these painful experiences in their past.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So when Megan and I were on the phone, she
suggested a kind of argument that she had used with
victims in the past, which is to say to them
very early in the conversation, look, I can't change what's
happened to you in the past, but if we work together,
maybe we can take the pain that you experienced and
put it to some constructive purpose will help other people.
(04:01):
And when Megan said that, it was like something clicked
for me because it's the best reason to talk to
a journalist. And also, so many people fear that talking
to a journalist is a bad thing, like oh, it's traitorous,
or you're a tattle tale, or you're complaining or whatever.
And what we like to do is redefine it as
a more noble thing. You are doing this to have
a constructive impact on society. It is may be very difficult,
(04:25):
but our goal is to do something that you can
eventually feel very proud of. And so that was really
that was really the beginning of our beginning of our partnership.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
In your book, you write about Lisa Bloom, this is
all Red's daughter. I'm wondering someone like that. What does
she think she's doing. Does she go to bed every
night and sit there and go, aha, we're pulling a
fast one and everyone as I'm doing all this work
for Harvey? Well, does she think she's doing something else?
What does she tell herself? Do you think?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I mean, maybe there will be a day where Lisa
Bloom comes into a studio and sits down and opens
up her heart art and tells us what she's been
thinking and feeling and why and why it was. I mean,
what we can tell you is that she did something
remarkable in twenty sixteen. She has been one of the
most prominent feminist attorneys in the country, worked with countless
(05:14):
victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault, and in twenty
sixteen crossed over to the other side. Why do you
think she has said that she thought that he only
engaged in inappropriate comments towards women, and that she wanted
to help him, go work with him to help him apologize.
You know, we obtained in the course of the reporting
for this book, these confidential records that showed she had
(05:34):
much deeper knowledge of the serious allegations against him, and
that she played a much darker role. I mean, she
was not honest about the work she did for him.
We've got the billing records, the memo in which she
spells out all the underhanded tactics she's going to use
to help him undermine his accusers, and she's basically saying,
I'm going to use all my experience working with victims
(05:54):
and harness that and use it with you to work
against them. And so was it about money? I mean,
what we know for sure is that she had done
a deal with Weinstein. She wanted she had a book
that he was going to turn into a movie about
Trayvon Martin. But beyond that, I mean, we don't we
She has not opened up. And when we when we
sought comment from her for this book, I mean, we
(06:16):
wouldn't publish, you know, we published that memo that she
wrote to him spelling out exactly what she was going
to do for him, which really contradicts her public comments
about what the role that she played and why she
went to go work for him in its entirety, so
that readers could see for themselves what she was saying
in her own words and doing at the time. But
when we presented her with that, she she refused to comment.
(06:37):
She said that, you know, she that she was going
to abide by attorney client privilege as you know, into
the future journey.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Look, I think you're asking the right question, which is
you've got one of the most famous feminist attorneys in
the country. She's Gloria Alred's daughter. She's been advertising herself
as a victim's writes attorney and a fighter for women
for all of these years, and she makes what we
know is a very intentional decision to cross the line
(07:10):
and work for Harvey Weinstein. And we know it's intentional
because of the memo that Megan just described. This is
her job audition memo, and in it she's saying, I
will smear on your behalf, I will manipulate on your behalf.
So the question is what led her over? You know what?
Did she genuinely not believe the women she represented over
(07:33):
the years?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Was she.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Did she think that Rose McGowan was just making it
all up? Et cetera, et cetera. So we can't look,
you know, she's not here. We don't have a crystal ball,
et cetera, et cetera. But here's what we can tell you,
because this also applies to David Boys, the other super lawyer,
the Renewal, the renowned litigator who did Bush v. Gore
(07:58):
and helped get gay marriage established. Here's the common denominator
that Bloom and Boys have in going to work for Weinstein.
They both wanted to be in the movie business. I know, Bloom,
so blooms, but Bloom.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
We're called because it's not what it's cracked up to be.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, Bloom writes this book called Suspicion Nation about Trayvon
Martin and gets very excited because Harvey Weinstein and Jay
Z option it to turn it into a film. Boys,
for all of his vast, fast, fast legal success, what
does he really want to do, at least in part,
is be in the movies. He's got interests in the
movie business. His daughter was an budding actress and wanted roles.
(08:38):
And we even obtained an email in which you've got
Harvey sort of setting her up for a part in
one of his films. And so, I mean, I think
so much of this story, and this was part of
my original draw to It is about, like, what is
the power that these movies have on all of us? Right?
Because it because that's the way Weinstein got everybody to
(09:03):
do what he wanted. That was the source of his power,
not just in luring people like boys in Bloom.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
You're going to pull him into my magnetic view.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Exactly, but also with the women, right, I mean, this
was all about work. Look, it's really important to remember
that there are two categories of women essentially that Weinstein
allegedly harasses and assaults. One of them actresses. The second
assistance women who want to be producers, right, women who
(09:31):
are twenty three years old, and they're so excited because
they're on there.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
At the bottom of a ladder, very first.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Day at a company like Mirror Max or the Weinstein Company.
This is going to be their big shot. It's so exciting,
there's so much potential here. And then boom, Harvey Weinstein
walks into the room and everything changes. And so this
is all about the actresses and the assistants.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Both.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
They're coming into this with with dreams, with ideas, with ambitions,
with hopes, and he turns those hopes and ambitions against
the women. And that has to do also with the
power of the movie. Is the power of this work?
You know, what is your ticket into this world? And
how can that? You know, is your desire for entry
(10:12):
into this world a kind of vulnerability that can then
be turned against you?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
You could?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
You don't?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I mean, I hope I phrased this the right way,
which is that I want to believe. I'm assuming in
your work you on earthed some things about Weinstein that
were compelling, seductive, like when people were around him, there
had to be something about him that facilitated the whole
event that would happen with some of these people. He
was a towering figure of accomplishment in the movie business.
(10:38):
He was a savant who knew everything there is to
know about every aspect on the deepest level of movie making,
movie production, movie development, movie distribution. There are very few
people There are almost none. The only equal Weinstein has
is Spielberg in terms of knowing everything there is to
know about developing, casting sets, everything and most importantble selling
(11:03):
that movie and marketing that movie, and that awards matrix
that he dominated for so long. People thought Weinstein was
a genius.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Well, we certainly witnessed Weinstein in action. We interviewed him
several times he came into The New York Times for
sit down interviews strike you, and he was. I think
that we were able to see in person that this
sort of range of this this sort of the spectrum
of his behavior that he would swing from kind of
(11:35):
charm and compliments and kind of ingratiating himself and like, well,
the New York Times, it's the best paper in the world,
and you know, let me tell you a story about it.
What a huge fan I am of the New York Times.
In terms of how he was able to pray on women,
I think that that is a separate question from how
he was able to sort of keep people in his
orbit and maintain his power. That really is one of
(11:58):
the most important questions is that they're were actually people
who got glimpses of his alleged misconduct over the years,
and what did they do about it? And how can
we explain the fact that there were so many individuals
and institutions, including his own companies, that became complicit in
his abuse. And what we were able to see is
that he kind of employed a variety of personality traits
(12:20):
from you know, sort of charm machine to threatening to
lashing out to manipulation, to bullying, and he seemed to
kind of pull these out of his pocket at various
times to try to get what he had wanted. And
I think that that he had been able to use
that we in our book were able to report out
this remarkable two years in his own company in twenty fourteen.
(12:44):
In twenty fifteen, when there were more and more allegations
coming to the surface that you know, people high up
in the company, including his own brother Bob Weinstein, saw
he was among the people who wanted to do something
and wanted to intervene, and Weinstein was really to use
a variety of tactics to ultimately shut down these efforts
(13:04):
of accountability.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Reporters Jodi Kanter and Megan Tuwhey Me Too is the
most prominent of several hashtags that helped start a movement
in the real world. Another was no Ban, No Wall,
inspired by President Trump's Muslim ban. My guest, Becca Heller
is the activist who organized help for travelers in the crosshairs.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
And I was like, holy shit, this ban comes down.
Whenever that is, there's going to be thousands of people
who are in the air who had legal permission to
enter the US when they took off and are going
to land essentially as undocumented, and nobody knows what's going
to happen to them. So we emailed our network and
organized lawyers to go to every international air property lawyers.
We organized sixteen hundred and then I don't know how many,
(13:52):
and ultimately ended up being I mean thousand thousands.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Multiple folks.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
My full interview with Becca Heller is in our archive
a Here's the Thing dot Org. I'm Alec Baldwin back
(14:18):
now with reporters Jodi Kanter and Megan Twey.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I've never really worked with anyone who has had this
strong and internal compass, and I think that compass has
just like pulled us forward again and again and again.
I think also that Megan is very exacting. God is
in the details. I get that, you know, God is
in the details on these stories, and I you know,
(14:44):
I hope our sources feel the same way I do,
which is that like when I'm in Meghan's hands, I
just feel like I'm working with a like a world
class surgeon or something, because the level of precision is
so incredibly high. I feel Megan's incredible compassion and empathy
for victims, but like kind of wrapped in this rigor
(15:05):
that only makes it better because it's not It's not
about sitting around and crying, you know, that's the role
of a psychologist or a friend. It's about having the
strength and the force to make the story really, really
work and make people feel safe through the power and
the strength of the journalism. And then I think the
(15:28):
final thing I would say is that I see a
relentlessness and an understanding of the psychology of how to
get people to give you information.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
When this is for Megan, when Jodi Canter comes out
of the bullpen and she's head into the mound, what
are her? What is the better afraid of? What pitches
does she have in her repertoire?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I would say, I think that there's one word that
comes to mind when I think of Jody, which is persistence,
like you know, heaven, Like I sort of pity the
person who's trying to get between you know, Jody and
the information that she's pursuing, and she is just she's
just a total bulldog. And it's no surprise that you know,
(16:14):
there was there was a there was sort of a
deep throat figure in the Weinstein investigation. Irwin Ryder was
in the top orbit of executives by Weinstein's side for
years and ended up actually, over the course of a
series of secretive meetings with Jody Canter, ended up providing
(16:34):
all this information about the harm that Weinstein was doing
to women in the company. And ultimately why, well, I
think because he was he was in the hands of
Jody Canter.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
No, no, no, that's not true. No he didn't because.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
No, excuse me, I'm sorry, No, I will, I will,
I will correct that this was somebody who had seen wrongdoing,
had become increasingly concerned about it, had tried to do
things to hold the boss accountable to no avail. And
so when Jody came knocking, was I think inclined to
do something, but the extent to which I mean Jody
(17:08):
from the first email she sent to him, through the
meetings that she had with him in secret in Tribeca,
she was able to ultimately get him to not only
start to tell her about what was going on within
the company, but ultimately provide her with an internal record,
a complaint that had been filed as recently as twenty
(17:29):
fifteen that spelled out all these extensive allegations of sexual
harassment and abuse in the company, and it really is
just one of the many ways in which her persistence
has paid off time and time again.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Jody, how'd you get him to do it?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I'll tell you the story, Irwin was it at first
very nervous. He grew a little more comfortable. You know.
We were meeting late at night in September of twenty
seventeen at the restaurant Little Park in Tribecca. I was like,
why does he want to meet in the middle of
Tribeca in a fancy restaurant, But that was spot we
always met in the same place. And he was telling
(18:03):
me a lot. But this is what sources do, right,
the very few of them sort of like tell the
story in order and will know exactly what's relevant and
what's not relevant. So he's telling us all this different stuff,
and every few nights I'm meeting with him, I'm taking
everything back to Megan, and we're by day we're trying
to track it down, nail it down, and I mean
(18:23):
a lot of it is checking out. And there was
this memo that he had mentioned a few times, but
I didn't know how significant it was. And he had
read me a few lines from the memo, and we
just thought that there might be more there. So I'm
sitting there and we're having our glasses of wine, and
I said to him, will you pull up that memo
(18:44):
on your phone again? So he pulls it up on
his phone, and I really, I think I just wanted
to like maybe get a couple of words right or something.
And he looks at me and he says, I'm going
to go to the little boys room now, and he
hands me his phone. So it's like he's telling me
without explicitly telling me, take this document now. You never
(19:07):
want to forward it to yourself, right, because that's going
to leave a digital trail from his email address to mine.
So instead, I'm, you know, like sitting there at the bar,
you know, when you have these moments in life, when
you're stating to your phone, don't have a technical problem,
like please, I just need my phone to work for
like the next ten minutes. Yeah, exactly. So, So his
(19:28):
phone is in my lap and I'm holding my phone
over my lap, and I'm careful to scroll so I
don't like miss any lines, and I'm screenshotting every page
of this memo, but I still don't know what's in
it because I have to work really fast because I'm
trying to, like, you know, be all smooth. So anyway,
he comes back from the bathroom a minute later and
(19:48):
his phone is sitting and waiting for him on his chair,
and you know, we go through the rest of our
drink state. But the second he leaves, we say goodbye,
and he's like, I'll walk you out, and I'm like, now,
you know what, I'm going to go to the lady's room.
So I go to the lady's room and that's when
I send the memo to Megan and Rebecca, and then
I walk outside in a hail cab and that's when
(20:11):
I actually read the mamo. And the woman who wrote it,
Lauren O'Connor, on top of being a very talented junior executive,
she's a powerful writer. And so that memo said things
like the balance of power at this company is Harvey
Weinstein ten me zero. So it's sort of like we've
been piecing together these allegations from you know, twenty five
(20:34):
or thirty year time period. And remember the earliest allegation,
the earliest settlement we've documented that Weinstein has paid is
nineteen ninety. Think about how early that is nineteen ninety.
Lauren O'Connor. She's writing this memo in twenty fifteen, and
yet it's describing some of the same things the women
(20:54):
had experienced in nineteen ninety in the late nineties, like,
for example, she's describing an incident at the Peninsula in
Beverly Hills. Well Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow have told
us about being sexually harassed at the Peninsula in Beverly
Hills by Weinstein, but their stories take place in the
mid to late nineties. So it's like this sense of
how long has this guy been doing this and we've
(21:17):
got to publish this story because nobody else has stopped him.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
We're taking a break.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
Stay with us, both of you.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
If I'm not mistaken. You both have a daughter.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Jody has two, I have one.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
You have one daughter. You have two daughters, and I
have an older daughter Io was twenty three, and I
have a younger daughter who's six. And my wife and
I from time to time think about what kind of
a world will they interact with in the future.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
We think about that question every day. And the founding
thing is that everything's changed and nothing's changed, and I
still don't have the answer changed. The laws, the structures,
the systems, the govern how we all behave they just
haven't changed. It, like the difficulty of reporting one of
(22:18):
these incidents. Maybe there's a little less social stigma, but
it's not fundamentally different than it was two years ago.
Federal sexual harassment laws in this country are so weak.
If you're a freelancer, you're not covered. If you work
for a workplace that has fewer than fifteen employees, you're
not covered. So there have been a couple of adjustments
to the law on the state level, but like the
(22:39):
fundamental rules of our society have barely changed. So with
respect to your question about kids, I think about our kids,
and I think about grandkids, and I think, you know,
what are we going to tell them about this period.
Are we going to say, you know, wow, Megan and
I published this story and found ourselves, you know, at
ground zero of a historic shift, and we can see
(23:02):
the effects of that, you know, to this day, and
it really was a window of change. Or are we
going to say, well, you know, it's sort of kind
of an extraordinary period and a whole bunch of men
were fired, but you know, not that much fundamentally shifted.
And then will the kids and grandkids say, oh, yeah,
that's you know, sexual harassment. It still happens at my
workplace all the time. It happens at my you know,
(23:25):
the restaurant where I wait tables during the summer. Or
are they gonna look at us and say, oh my god.
It used to be okay for male bosses to hit
on younger female subordinates who they held workplace power over.
It used to be okay in a restaurant for the
(23:45):
male manager to grope the waitress right like they they
they may they may say, wait a second. People in Hollywood,
like they just joked about the casting couch and they
just acep, did it as a routine part of their business.
And will they feel a kind of shock at what
used to be tolerated.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Well, I want to get to that in a minute,
about the willingness factor, where now that they're willing, but
men believe sometimes that they're willing. Megan, tell me about
your crystal ball into the future.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
If you will my crystal Ball in the future. I mean,
you know, we are so we are so immersed in
the reporting process a day in and day out. You know,
the first day, right after the Weinstein story broke and
it started to take off. I mean, we had never
anticipated that. Two nights before we went to you know,
we went to publish, Jody and I actually stepped back.
(24:38):
We'd been working around the clock, and we actually shared
a cab back to Brooklyn at about one o'clock in
the morning, and in that silent moment, turned to each
other and said, do you think anybody's going to read
this story? Does anybody know who Harvey Weinstein is? Is
anybody going to care? So? I think if you're looking
for like signs that we were predictors of the future,
that's certainly not the case.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Is not the case, but it is instinct women and mothers.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, I mean I think that I, you know, I
think that it's not I would say that that, you know,
I think that you're actually asking the question in a
pretty within a pretty narrow framework. I think that we've
found among our sort of male friends and colleagues that
they are just as concerned, and parents of sons, I
think are just as invested in this issue. And I
(25:23):
think that you talk to parents of daughters and sons,
they will tell you that they really want to make
sure that we are able to figure out emerge from
this moment with some sort of agreed upon standards that
make sure that everybody is treated fairly and receives adequate protections,
and that that that it's a safe world for you know,
the girls and the boys.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Now I've got three boys, a four year old, a
three year old, and a one year old. I mean,
I want to go from that tangent, but it's it's
really remarkable how this plays into that I'm saying to
my son and going, you know, don't touch anybody without
their permission. That's true, they don't boy with But I
was filming a documentary film with Jimmy Toback, who is
a dear friend of mine, and in terms of sexual harassment,
(26:07):
there's a whole pile of.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Hundreds of women have accused him, right.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Jimmy's one of those people who believe that if my
batting average is ten percent, I need to hit on
a thousand women. I'm not excusing his behavior, but Jimmy's
somebody who I had this deep intellectual exploration with about
films we were going to do. We developed a bunch
of projects together. There were very few people in the
world you could have the kind of conversation about movie
making you could have with Jimmy, and he was a
(26:34):
very dear, dear friend of mine. And then all this
stuff comes up where they say he actually physically assaulted
Selma Blair. Now, when someone is your friend, you tend
to give it some credence. I am the south Shore
Long Island, middle class white boy than I am someone
who your friend.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Well, right, I mean, like, look, if your best friend
was convicted of murder, would you visit that person in jail?
That's like a it's a legit moral conundrum, right. I
think plenty of us are friends with people who have
done terrible things wrong, and that's an interesting decision, right,
Like do his sins against other people? There are arguments
(27:12):
for and against that preventing you from having a friendship
with them.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
But you know, Harvey Winson is different. I never did
business with Harvey. You know, years ago people would say
blahbady blah and Oscars and this and the Weinstein Company
and Mira maxim Any raped Rose McGowan, like everybody knew that.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
So what do you think explains that? Why do you
think that people in your world were able to accept
that first but that's beft talking point.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
But I think that that's what I myself would not
use that word, except because when I did the movie
The Aviator that Harvey produced, I didn't even know he
was involved. Scorsese himself called me, and when Marty calls you,
you go. I arrived on the set in Montreal to
discover that Harvey was one of the producers, but he
was never there. So I do highlight the fact that
that accept is not the word. I mean nobody that
(27:59):
I know, except anything about him.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I was so curious about something you said a minute ago,
which is when you were talking about to back, you
did something really interesting, which is you kept alternating between
the past and the present in terms of talking about
whether he is your friend or not. You said he
was my friend, he is my friend. He was my friend,
he is my friend, So would you still call him
your friend. I'm just curious.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yes, I don't know that he's sexually assaulted women in auditions.
I don't know that. I don't know that well.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
But to go back to your sort of distinction of
you know, it sounds like you're paying close attention to
this single criminal allegation and his denial of a crime.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
No, I'm only saying that there's gradations here, and I
think that what Weinstein did was far where and he
had the power to do.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
There are also gradations of the victims, right. I mean
that in the case of Weinstein, he was allegedly praying
on well known, famous actresses as well as you know,
lowly assistants in his companies. You know, the type of
twenty three year olds that you wouldn't recognize if you
pass them on the street, you know who for the
most part, had sort of disappeared without a trace, without
you know, ever becoming public before this. And so the
(29:07):
question there, I think for you is some aside these
dozens of other women who have come forward, they may
not be famous, but you know, I think it's still
worth learning those allegations and knowing them.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Here's what I think would be a really interesting exercise.
The James Tobek coverage was mainly done by the La Times.
That's my impression. Yes, I would go back and read
those stories and listen to the women because it sounds
like you may have missed something really important, which is
the sort of audition factor.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Involved can bring charges against Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, remember you're saying charges, which is a criminal word.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Any civil cases brought against Jimmy by those women, I
don't know.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
We'd have to go back and check, because again it
was the LA Times reporting, not ours. But I guess
what I'm saying is I think it's worth really listening
to the women's experiences. Even with the stories that are
allegations of sexual harassment and not violent sexual assault, there's
a harm that's real, even if it isn't physical, which
(30:14):
has to do with work, and it can play out
over a very long time. Let's talk about Weinstein, because
those are you know, those are the victims we have
interviewed the most thoroughly. When you talk to women who
have really terrible stories of sexual harassment by Weinstein, part
of what a lot of them feel now is a
sense of loss and grief because even though you know
(30:36):
he's been outed, and even though even though there's a
sense of sort of like communal accountability towards him, even
though the world now knows about so many of these
women's stories, what a lot of them say is that,
you know, I can never be twenty three years old again.
I can never go audition for those movies I can
(30:58):
never have my first job in film again, and my
whole life is different because of the way he treated me.
And there's really nothing that can ever change that.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Jody, how long have you worked at the Times?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I've been there a long time, like fifteen years long,
ten years?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, And how would you describe the sexual harassment policies
of the Times? Do you nobody sexually harassed anybody at
the Times?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
I'll tell you what, Alec. I wouldn't because that is
not my job and that is not Megan's job. The
Times has like a whole hr apparatus, and all these
editors and leaders.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Who deal with that you find satisfactory.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, because, first of all, listen, everybody has been affected
by me too. I don't think there's an organization, including
we're sitting here at WNYC, which has had its own
issues over time. Every organization is affected by this. It's
close to all of us. There have been issues at
the Times, but Megan and I have been very careful
not to get involved in any of them because we've
got to do our jobs. And our jobs is, you know,
(31:57):
we're not the internal cops at the Times. Our job
is to uncover this information. You know, you can't solve
a problem you can.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Do you see, maybe there's an odd component to that
where you want me to make sure I examine Jimmy
Ktotoback in relation to Weinstein as carefully as I should.
But you don't think you need to examine the Times
as carefully as Mira Max or Weinstein films.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
No, because we like I mean, I was just curious
about your personal relationship with him and your friendship. So
I was really I was just really asking a question.
But I don't think it'll work context Megan and I
bear there are people at the Times who bear actual
responsibility for making sure that we have sound policies for
preventing and addressing this kind of behavior.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
That is not Megan or I would you have a
comment about that, Megan.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Yeah, I mean there have been a variety of cases
that have played out at the New York Times that
have been investigated, and some have resulted in people leaving
the Times. Some have reulted people being placed on probation.
Like it is what's clear to us, and we don't
know the details of those cases, but we know, like
we there is evidence of accountability playing out throughout our
(33:11):
own organization and you know, what we can say beyond
that is just that when it comes to the reporting
on sexual harassment and sexual assault at the New York Times,
that you know, we have had the support of editors
and beyond straight up to the very top of the organization.
You know, this was not this is not work that's
done just by just by women. This is you know,
(33:31):
male editors, the you know, male publishers. Our investigations straddled
the passing of the baton of of the publishers. Both
men were like one hundred percent in support of this.
And and so we you know, we we we feel
lucky to live to work in an organization that has
been willing to put so many resources behind this type
of work.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
What do you think men now need to learn about
how to say to you, I'm attracted to you. Is
that all going to change now? Should it change?
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Well? Listen, I think that there's agreement that there is
a hunger for kind of a clearer sense of what
the guidelines should be in the workplace, but within dating
and more broadly, in relations of men and women. There's
no question that everybody can have sexually satisfying lives and
romantic lives normal while also figuring out how to treat
(34:22):
each other with respect. And I think that that's you know,
I think that the worst thing that could happen is
that people don't talk about these issues, and if they're not,
whether it's with their kids or their their partners or
in the workplace. But and also in these interviews, you know,
like we're just so grateful that you were willing to
talk to us about, for example, your relationship with Tobac,
and like, thank you for engaging with us.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
But that doesn't mean I don't have work to do,
which you've reminded me of that again. I mean, I'm
going to go back and read those La Times pieces
and I'm going to contact the writer, the principal writer
of that see feel he'll come do the show and
talk about that.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I think that's a great idea. I would also just
say that I think it's really important to wreck that
this is really abuse of power. This is not just
a sort of sexual preference or a tool that's being
used by unattractive guys because they wouldn't otherwise be able
to get redmen. Yeah, that this is abusive power.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I want to end by saying that this was one
of the more difficult and on my part, least successful
interviews I've ever done. Both of these writers know their subject,
and my own grasp of the me too issue is
in need of further research. The writer they refer to
(35:38):
from the La Times is Glenn Whip, and we will
surely invite him on in soon. In the meantime, the
friction between believe the victim and innocent until proven guilty continues.
Thanks to Jodi Kanter and Megan Towey, I am reminded
(35:59):
that we are never done re examining this issue and
our own relationship to it. Their book about their Weinstein
reporting and its fallout is called she said out Now
from Penguin Press. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing. Is
brought to you by iHeart Radio
Host
Alec Baldwin
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