Ronan Farrow said in a new interview that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attempted to withdraw from an interview with the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and that her staff raised concerns around his reporting of sexual misconduct allegations surrounding disgraced Hollywood mogul and Clinton donor Harvey Weinstein.
“She attempted to withdraw from an interview that she had committed to for a foreign policy book that I was working on, for which I interviewed every other living secretary of State,” Farrow told “Special Report” anchor Bret Baier on Fox News late Wednesday. “And, before doing so, her staff raised concerns about the fact that I was working on this story about one of her most significant donors — a big bundler of Hollywood money.”
Farrow worked under Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, during her tenure as secretary of State in the Obama administration.
“Like everything else in the book, Bret, this is handled in a very measured way,” the 31-year-old added.
Farrow joined Baier to promote “Catch and Kill,” currently the best-selling book in the country, which details multiple sexual misconduct allegations against Weinstein, as well as former “Today” host Matt Lauer.
Farrow won a Pulitzer in 2018 for his reporting on allegations of sexual misconduct and rape against Weinstein. He originally had conducted his investigation for NBC News, but he says he was forced to take the story to The New Yorker after the network said his reporting hadn’t passed its editorial standards.
“We had a recorded admission of guilt from Harvey Weinstein secured during a police sting operation,” Farrow says. “There have been mischaracterizations and downplayings of what we had.”
NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack has pushed back at Farrow’s assertion on how the story was handled.
“NBC News assigned the Harvey Weinstein story to Ronan, we completely supported it over many months with resources — both financial and editorial,” Lack wrote in the memo to staff last week.
“After seven months, without one victim or witness on the record, he simply didn’t have a story that met our standard for broadcast nor that of any major news organization,” Lack wrote.
“Not willing to accept that standard and not wanting to get beaten by the New York Times, he asked to take his story to an outlet he claimed was ready to publish right away. Reluctantly, we allowed him to go ahead. Fifty-three days later, and five days after the New York Times did indeed break the story, he published an article at the New Yorker that bore little resemblance to the reporting he had while at NBC News,” he adds.
Baier asked Farrow on Wednesday night if he felt “demoralized” after NBC killed the story.
“The fundamental fact here is that I took reporting that this network had looked at — and you can read the book for yourself and see whether you agree with their judgment that it shouldn’t have aired — and took it across the street to The New Yorker,” he told Baier.
“And in just a matter of weeks, it became a Pulitzer Prize-winning, significant body of reporting. And I owe that to the bravery of sources, I owe it to incredible editors there, and I think that it tells an important story about the circles of mutual protection and power in our business — in the media, and the need to hold ourselves accountable.”