0:02

I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening

0:05

to Here's the Thing. Jodie

0:09

Canter and Megan Twoey are

0:11

the New York Times reporters who broke

0:13

the Harvey Weinstein story for

0:16

five months. Perpetually in danger

0:18

of losing the scoop, they cultivated

0:21

and cajoled sources ranging

0:23

from the Weinstein's accountant to

0:25

Ashley Judd. The article

0:27

that emerged on October five, two

0:29

thousand seventeen, was a level

0:32

headed and impeccably sourced expose

0:34

whose effects continue to be felt

0:37

around the world. Cantor

0:40

and Towey documented twenty five

0:43

years of sexual abuse, harassment,

0:45

and exploitation by one of

0:47

the most important producers in the history

0:50

of Hollywood. The story put

0:52

a definitive end to his career

0:55

and his company. It

0:57

has also shaken the lives of

0:59

some those who supported and

1:01

defended him, like lawyer Lisa

1:04

Bloom, who until last year

1:06

had followed the path of her feminist mother,

1:08

Gloria Allread in representing

1:11

victims. And just as

1:13

clearly, the reporters documented the

1:15

loose network of business and creative

1:17

interests that enabled rape,

1:20

harassment, and casting couch

1:22

coercion. They

1:24

revealed to America, the culture

1:26

in Hollywood that knew about all

1:28

of this and disapproved, but expected

1:31

individual women victimized

1:33

and isolated to bear the burden

1:35

of exposing the powerful men who humiliated

1:38

them themselves. But

1:40

before any of the fallout, Jodi

1:43

Canter and Megan Tooey had to

1:45

source up. One of the first daunting

1:48

casks was to try to get in touch with these famous

1:50

actresses. But Megan

1:52

and I were like, we don't know any actresses,

1:55

you know, and getting We're sitting there saying,

1:57

Okay, how do you get you know, Ashley Judge's phone?

1:59

Actually it was the path to actually Judge. You can

2:02

well, that one was pretty easy because Nick Kristof

2:05

knew her and Christof the opinion columnist at

2:07

the Times. But we felt strongly

2:09

that we could not go through publicists or agents

2:11

because their gatekeepers, they're just going to shut everything

2:13

down. We wanted to reach

2:15

the actresses directly, and

2:18

and so the questions were, you know, how

2:20

do you reach these people, And even

2:22

if you get them on the phone, what are you going to say in the first

2:24

forty five seconds of that phone conversation

2:27

to earn some trust and keep the conversation

2:29

going. So Actually, that's sort of the

2:31

origin of my partnership with Megan, because

2:34

Megan was on maternity leave, and but

2:36

she had been a sex crimes reporter for a long time,

2:38

and she had done the reporting one and Donald Trump

2:40

and women. At the time, I worked at the Milwaukee

2:42

Journal Sentinel, I worked at the Chicago Triman,

2:45

and I've been at the Times a year and a half. Um

2:47

I came into The Times in two thousand and sixteen to join

2:49

the team that was doing coverage of

2:52

the two thousand and sixteen presidential

2:54

race. So I had done these stories

2:56

about Trump and his treatment of women,

2:59

and after he was elected, had been part

3:01

of the coverage of his when we were first looking

3:03

at the ties between him and Russia. UM

3:06

So, I had been doing that work up until the

3:09

March of two thousand seventeen, when I had a baby

3:11

and went on maternity leave. And so it was

3:13

while I was on maternity leave that Jody started

3:15

the wine scene investigation and sort of called me.

3:17

We didn't even know each other, and she called me and said,

3:20

I know you've done stories in the past about victims

3:22

of sex crimes, and I know you did reporting with some of

3:24

the women who were who accused Trump of

3:26

sexual misconduct. Do you have any suggestions

3:28

of of you know, how how you know

3:30

what to say when you're knocking on these doors

3:32

and picking up the phone and calling people and

3:35

to asking them to open up about these painful

3:37

experiences in their past. So when Megan and

3:39

I were on the phone, uh, she

3:41

suggested a kind of argument that she

3:43

had used with victims in the past, which is to

3:45

say to them very early in the conversation,

3:49

look, I can't change

3:51

what's happened to you in the past, but if

3:54

we work together, maybe we can

3:56

take the pain that you experienced and put

3:58

it to some constructive purpose will

4:00

help other people. And when Megan

4:03

said that, it was like something clicked for me

4:05

because it's the best reason to talk

4:07

to a journalist. And also, so many people

4:09

fear that talking to a journalist is a bad thing, like

4:11

oh, it's traitorous, or you're a tattle tale, or

4:13

you're complaining or whatever. And what

4:15

we like to do is redefine it as a more

4:18

noble thing. You are doing this to have

4:20

a constructive impact on

4:22

society. It is. It may be very difficult,

4:25

but our goal is to do something that you can eventually

4:27

feel very proud of and so

4:29

that was really that was really the beginning of our

4:32

beginning of our partnership. In your

4:34

book, you're write about Lisa Bloom. This

4:36

is all Red's daughter. I'm

4:39

wondering someone like

4:41

that, What does she think she's doing. Does

4:44

she go to bed every night and sit there and go, ah,

4:47

we're pulling a fast one and everyone as I'm doing

4:49

all this work for Harvey? What does she think

4:51

she's doing? Something up? What does she tell herself? Do you

4:53

think I mean, maybe there will be a day

4:55

where Lisa Bloom comes into a studio and

4:57

sits down and opens up her art

5:00

and tells us what she's been thinking and

5:02

feeling and why report

5:05

and why it was. I mean, what we can tell you is that she

5:07

did something remarkable in two thousand sixteen.

5:09

She has been one of the most prominent feminist attorneys

5:12

in the country, worked with countless

5:14

victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault,

5:16

and in two thousand sixteen crossed over

5:18

to the other side. Why do you think she has said

5:20

that she thought that he only engaged

5:22

in inappropriate comments towards women,

5:25

and that she wanted to help him go work

5:27

with him to help him apologize.

5:30

You know, we obtained in the course of the reporting for

5:32

this book, these confidential records that showed

5:34

she had much deeper knowledge of the serious

5:36

allegations against him, and that she played a

5:38

much darker role. I mean, she was

5:41

not honest about the work she did for him. We've

5:43

got the billing records, the memo in which she spells

5:45

out all the underhanded tactics she's gonna use

5:48

to help him undermine his accusers,

5:50

and she's basically saying, I'm going to use all my experience

5:53

working with victims and harness

5:55

that and use it with you to work

5:57

against them. And so it was us

6:00

about money. I mean, what we know for sure is that

6:02

she had done a deal with Weinstein. She

6:04

wanted she had a book that he was going to turn

6:07

into a movie about Trayvon

6:09

Martin. But beyond that, I mean,

6:11

we don't we She has not opened up.

6:13

And when we saw when we sawt comment from her

6:15

for this book, I mean, we wouldn't publish. Uh,

6:17

you know, we published that memo that she wrote to him

6:19

spelling out exactly what she was going to do for

6:22

him, which really contradicts her public comments

6:24

about what the role that she played and

6:26

why she went to go work for him in its entirety

6:28

so that readers could see for themselves what she was

6:31

saying in her own words and doing at the time.

6:33

But when we presented her with that um

6:35

she she refused to comment. She said that

6:38

you know, she that she was gonna abide by attorney

6:40

client privilege, is you know, as

6:43

into the future. Look,

6:47

I think you're asking the right question, which

6:50

is you've got one of

6:52

the most famous feminist attorneys in

6:54

the country. She's Gloria Alread's daughter. She's

6:56

been advertising herself as

6:59

a victim's rights attorney and a fighter

7:01

for women for all of these years, and

7:04

she makes what we know is a

7:06

very intentional decision to

7:09

cross the line and work for Harvey Weinstein.

7:11

And we know it's intentional because

7:13

of the memo that Megan just described. This

7:15

is her job audition memo, and in it she's

7:18

saying, I will smear

7:20

on your behalf, I will manipulate

7:23

on your behalf. So the question

7:26

is what led her over? You

7:28

know what? Did she genuinely

7:30

not believe the women she represented

7:33

over the years. Was

7:36

she did she

7:38

think that Rose McGowan was just making

7:41

it all up? Etcetera, etcetera. So we can't

7:43

look you know, she's not here, we don't have a crystal ball,

7:45

etcetera, etcetera. But here's what we can tell you, because

7:47

this also applies to David

7:49

Boys, the other super

7:52

lawyer, the renewer, the

7:54

renowned litigator who did Bush

7:57

v. Gore and help get gay marriage establish.

8:00

Here's the common denominator that Bloom

8:02

and Boys have in going to work

8:04

for Weinstein. They both wanted

8:07

to be in the movie business. I

8:10

know Bloom, so blooms, but Bloom called

8:12

me because it's not what it's cracked up to be. Well,

8:15

Bloom writes this book called

8:17

Suspicion Nation about Trayvon Martin

8:19

and gets very excited because Harvey

8:21

Weinstein and Jay Z option

8:24

it to turn it into a film. Boys,

8:27

for all of his vast, fast, fast legal

8:29

success, what does he really want to do, at least

8:31

in part, is be in the movies. He's got

8:33

interests in the movie business. His daughter

8:36

wasn't budding actress and wanted roles.

8:38

And we even obtained an email in which you've

8:40

got Harvey sort of setting her up for a part in

8:43

one of his films. And so

8:45

I mean, I think so much of this story,

8:48

and this was part of my original draw to

8:50

it is about like, what

8:53

is the power that these movies have

8:56

on all of us? Right? Because it's

8:59

because that's the way Weinstein

9:02

got everybody to do what he wanted.

9:04

That was the source of his power, not just in

9:07

luring people like boys and Bloom

9:09

into my magnetic view exactly, but

9:12

also with the women, right, I mean, this was all about

9:14

work. Look, it's

9:16

really important to remember that there are two

9:18

categories of women essentially

9:21

that Weinstein allegedly harasses

9:23

and assaults. One of them actresses.

9:26

The second assistance women

9:28

who want to be producers, right, women

9:31

who are twenty three years old, and they're so

9:33

excited because they're on their very

9:36

first day at a company like Mirrormax

9:38

or the Weinstein Company. This is going to be their big

9:40

shot. It's so exciting, there's so much potential

9:43

here. And then boom, Harvey Weinstein walks

9:45

into the room and everything changes. And so

9:47

this is all about the actresses

9:49

and the assistance. Both. They're coming

9:52

into this with with dreams,

9:54

with ideas, with ambitions,

9:56

with hopes, and he turns those

9:58

hopes and ambitions against the women, and

10:00

that has to do also with the power

10:03

of the movie. Is the power of this work?

10:05

You know, what is your ticket into this

10:08

world? And how can that? You

10:10

know, is your desire for entry into

10:12

this world a kind of vulnerability that

10:14

can then be turned against you? You can? You

10:17

don't? I mean, I hope I phrase this the right

10:19

way, which is that I want to believe. I'm

10:21

assuming in your work on Earth some

10:23

things about Weinstein that were compelling,

10:26

seductive, like when people were around him, there

10:28

had to be something about him that facilitated

10:31

the whole event that would happen with some of these people.

10:34

He was a towering figure

10:36

of accomplishment in the movie business. He

10:38

was a savant who knew everything

10:41

there is to know about every aspect

10:44

on the deepest level of movie making, movie

10:46

production, movie development, movie distribution.

10:49

There are very few people There are almost none.

10:52

The only equal Weinstein has is Spielberg

10:55

in terms of knowing everything there is to know

10:57

about developing, casting, sets,

11:01

everything and most importantle,

11:03

selling that movie and marketing that movie,

11:05

and that awards matrix that he dominated

11:07

for so long. People thought

11:09

Weinstein was a genius. Well,

11:12

we certainly witnessed Weinstein

11:14

in action. We interviewed him

11:16

several times he came into The New

11:18

York Times for sit down interview

11:21

and he was I think that we were able

11:24

to see in person um

11:26

that this sort of range of

11:29

this this sort of the spectrum of his

11:31

behavior that he would swing from

11:34

kind of charm and compliments

11:36

and kind of ingratiating himself and

11:39

like, well, the New York Times, it's the best

11:41

paper in the world, and you know, let

11:43

me tell you a story about it. What a huge fan I am

11:45

of the New York Times. In terms of

11:47

how he was able to pray on women, I

11:49

think that that is a separate question from how he

11:51

was able to sort of keep people in

11:53

his orbit and maintain his

11:56

power. That really is one

11:58

of the most important questions is that they were

12:00

actually people who got glimpses

12:02

of his alleged misconduct over the years,

12:05

and what did they do about it? And and how

12:07

does how can we explain the fact that there were

12:09

so many individuals and institutions,

12:11

including his own companies, that became

12:13

complicit in his abuse. And what

12:15

we were able to see is that he kind of employed

12:18

a variety of personality traits

12:20

from from you know, sort of

12:22

charm machine to threatening uh

12:25

to lashing out, to manipulation,

12:28

to bullying, and he seemed to kind of

12:30

pull these out of his pocket at various times

12:33

to try to get what he had wanted. And

12:35

I think that that he had been able to use

12:37

that we in our book were able to report

12:39

out, uh this remarkable two years

12:41

in his own company in two thousand fourteen

12:44

and two thousand fifteen, when there were more

12:46

and more allegations coming to the surface

12:49

that you know, people high up in the company,

12:52

including his own brother Bob Weinstein,

12:54

saw he was among the people who wanted

12:56

to do something and wanted to intervene, and

12:58

and Weinstein was really able to use a variety

13:01

of tactics to ultimately shut down

13:03

these efforts of accountability.

13:08

Reporters Jodie Cantor and

13:10

Megan Twoey, I'm

13:18

at like Baldwin back now with reporters

13:21

Jodie cant and Megan Twoey. I've

13:24

never really worked with anyone who has had

13:26

this strong and internal compass,

13:29

and I think that compass has just like pulled

13:31

us forward again and

13:34

again and again. I think also

13:36

that Megan is very exacting.

13:38

God is in the details, you

13:40

know, God is in the details on these

13:43

stories. And I you know,

13:45

I hope our sources feel the same way I do,

13:47

which is that like when I'm in Megan's

13:50

hands, I just feel like

13:52

I'm working with a like a world class

13:54

surgeon or something, because the level

13:56

of precision is so incredibly

13:59

high. I feel Megan's

14:01

incredible compassion and

14:03

empathy for victims, but like kind

14:05

of wrapped in this rigor. That only makes

14:08

it better because it's not It's

14:10

not about sitting around and crying,

14:13

you know, that's the role of a psychologist or

14:15

a friend. It's about having

14:17

the strength and the force to make

14:19

the story really really work

14:21

and make people feel safe through

14:24

the power and the strength of

14:26

the journalism. And then I

14:28

think the final thing I would say

14:31

is that I see a relentlessness

14:34

and an understanding of

14:37

the psychology of how

14:39

to get people to give you information.

14:43

When this is for Megan, When Jody

14:45

Canter comes out of the bullpen and

14:48

she said into the mound, what are her? What are

14:50

the better afraid of? What pitches does she have

14:53

in her repertoire, I would

14:55

say, I think that there's one word that comes

14:57

to mind when I when I think of Jody, which

14:59

is persistance. Um,

15:02

like you know heaven, Like, I sort of pity

15:04

the person who's trying to get between you

15:07

know, Jody and and the information that

15:09

she's pursuing. And she

15:12

is just um, she's just a total

15:14

bulldog. And it's no surprise

15:16

that you know, there was there was a there was sort

15:18

of a deep throat figure in the Weinstein investigation.

15:21

Irwin Ryder was in the

15:24

top orbit of executives by

15:26

Weinstein side for years and

15:29

ended up actually, over the course of

15:32

a series of secretive meetings with

15:34

Jodie Cantor, ended up providing

15:37

all this information about the

15:39

harm that Weinstein was doing two women

15:41

in the company. Ultimately, well,

15:44

I think because he was he was in the hands of Jodie

15:46

Canter. No, no, no, no, that's not true. He

15:48

didn't know because no, excuse me, I'm sorry, No, I

15:50

will, I will, I will correct that this was somebody who

15:53

had seen wrongdoing, had become increasingly concerned

15:55

about it, had tried to do things to hold the boss

15:57

accountable to no avail. And so

16:00

when Jodie came knocking, was

16:02

um, I think inclined to

16:06

do something. But the extent

16:09

to which I mean Jody from the first

16:11

email she sent to him, through

16:14

the meetings that she had with him in secret

16:16

in Tribeca, she was

16:18

able to ultimately get

16:21

him to not only start to tell her about

16:23

what was going on within the company,

16:25

but ultimately provide her with

16:27

an internal record, a complaint

16:29

that had been filed as recently as two thousand

16:32

fifteen that's spelled out all these extensive

16:34

allegations of sexual harassment and

16:36

abuse in the company. And it really

16:38

is just one of the many ways in which her

16:40

persistence has like paid off time and time

16:43

again. Jody, how did you get him to do it? I'll

16:45

tell you the story, Irwin

16:47

was it at first very nervous. He grew

16:50

a little more comfortable. You know. We

16:52

were meeting late at night in September at

16:55

the restaurant Little Park in Tribeca.

16:57

I was like, why does he want to meet in

17:00

the middle of Tribeca in a fancy restaurant,

17:02

But that was his spot. We always met in the same place.

17:05

And he was telling me a lot. But

17:07

this is what sources do, right, the very few

17:09

of them sort of like tell the story in

17:12

order and we'll know exactly

17:15

what's relevant and what's not relevant.

17:17

So he's telling us all this different stuff and

17:19

and every few nights I'm meeting with him. I'm taking everything

17:21

back to Megan, and we're by day we're trying

17:23

to track it down, nail it down,

17:25

and I mean a lot of it is checking

17:27

out. And there was this memo

17:30

that he had mentioned a few times,

17:32

but I didn't know how significant it was. And he had

17:34

read me a few lines from the memo and

17:37

I we just thought that

17:39

there might be more there. So I'm sitting

17:42

there and we're having our glasses of wine

17:44

and I said to him, will you pull up that memo

17:46

on your phone again? So he pulls

17:48

it up on his phone and I really,

17:51

I think I just wanted to like

17:53

maybe get a couple of words

17:56

right or something. And he looks

17:58

at me and he says, I'm

18:00

going to go to the little boy's room now, and

18:03

he hands me his phone. So

18:05

it's like he's telling me, without explicitly

18:07

telling me, take this document

18:09

now. You never want to forward it to yourself,

18:11

right, because that's going to leave a digital trail

18:14

from his email address to mine. So

18:16

instead I'm you know, like sitting there at the

18:18

bar. You know, when you have these

18:21

moments in life when you're saying to your phone.

18:23

Don't have a technical problem, like, please, I

18:25

just need my phone to work for like the next ten minutes.

18:28

Yeah, exactly. So, so his

18:30

phone is in my lap and I'm holding my phone

18:33

over my lap and I'm careful to scroll

18:36

so I don't like miss any lines, and I'm

18:38

screenshotting every

18:40

page of this memo, but I still

18:42

don't know what's in it because I have to work really

18:44

fast because I'm trying to, like, you know,

18:46

be all smooth. So anyway, he comes

18:49

back from the bathroom a minute later, and

18:51

his phone is sitting and waiting for him

18:54

on his chair, and you know, we go

18:56

through the rest of our drink state. But the

18:58

second he leaves, we say

19:00

goodbye and he's like, I'll walk you out, and I'm like, you

19:03

know what, I'm gonna go to the ladies room. So

19:05

I go to the ladies room and that's when

19:07

I send the memo to Megan and Rebecca,

19:10

and then I walk outside in a hail cab

19:13

and that's when I actually read

19:15

the mamo. And the woman who wrote it, Lauren

19:18

O'Connor, on top of being a very

19:20

talented junior executive, she's a

19:22

powerful writer. And so that memo

19:24

said things like the balance of

19:26

power at this company is Harvey

19:29

Weinstein ten me zero.

19:32

So it's sort of like we've been piecing together

19:34

these allegations from you know,

19:36

twenty five or thirty year time

19:39

period, and remember the earliest

19:41

allegation, the earliest settlement we've

19:43

documented that Weinstein is paid is

19:46

think about how early that is. Lauren

19:49

O'Connor. She's writing this

19:51

memo in twenty and

19:54

yet it's describing some of the same

19:56

things the women had experienced in in

19:59

the late nineties, Like, for example,

20:01

she's describing an incident at the Peninsula

20:04

in Beverly Hills. Well, Ashley

20:06

Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow have told us about

20:08

being sexually harassed at the Peninsula

20:10

in Beverly Hills by Weinstein, but their

20:13

stories take place in the mid to late nineties.

20:15

So it's like this sense of how

20:17

long has this guy been doing this and we've

20:19

got to publish this

20:22

story because nobody else has stopped

20:24

him. Um, both

20:26

of you, if I'm not mistaken, you both have a

20:28

daughter. Jody has to have

20:31

you have one. You have two daughters, and I have an older

20:33

daughter it was three, and I have a younger daughter

20:35

who's six, and my wife

20:37

and I from time to time think about what kind of

20:39

a world will they interact

20:41

with in the future. We

20:44

think about that question every day,

20:46

and the confounding thing is that

20:48

everything's changed and nothing's

20:50

changed, and I still don't have the

20:52

answer. What hasn't changed. The

20:55

laws, the structures, the

20:57

systems, the govern how

21:00

we all behave they just haven't changed.

21:02

It like the difficulty of

21:04

reporting one of these incidents. Maybe

21:06

there's a little less social stigma, but

21:09

it's not fundamentally different than it was

21:11

two years ago. Federal sexual

21:13

harassment laws in this country are so weak. If

21:15

you're a freelancer, you're not covered. If

21:18

you work for a workplace that has fewer than

21:20

fifteen employees, you're not covered. So

21:22

there have been a couple of adjustments to the law on the

21:24

state level, but like the fundamental

21:27

rules of our society have barely

21:29

changed. So with respect to your question

21:32

about kids, I think about our kids, and I

21:34

think about grandkids, and I think, you

21:36

know, what are we going to tell them about this period? Are we

21:38

going to say? You

21:40

know, wow, Megan and I published this story

21:42

and found ourselves, you know, at ground

21:45

zero of a historic shift,

21:47

and and and we can see the effects

21:49

of that, you know, to this day, and it really

21:52

was a window of change. Or are we going

21:54

to say, well, you know, it's sort of kind of an extraordinary

21:57

period and a whole bunch of men were fired, but

21:59

you know, not that much fundamentally

22:02

shifted. And then will the kids and grandkids

22:04

say, oh, yeah that you know, sexual

22:06

harassment. It still happens at my workplace

22:09

all the time. It happens at my you

22:12

know, the restaurant where I wait tables

22:14

during the summer. Or are

22:16

they gonna look at us and say,

22:20

oh my god, it used to be

22:22

okay for male bosses to

22:24

hit on younger female subordinates

22:27

who they held workplace power over.

22:30

It used to be okay in a restaurant

22:32

for the male manager to grope the waitress.

22:35

Wasn't right, like

22:37

like they they may

22:40

they may say, wait a second. People

22:42

in Hollywood, like they just joked

22:44

about the casting couch and they just accepted

22:47

it as a routine part of their business. And

22:50

will they feel a kind of shock at at what

22:52

used to be tolerated. Well, I want to get

22:54

to that in a minute, about the willingness factor,

22:56

where not that they're willing. But but men

22:59

believe sometimes that they're willing. Megan,

23:01

tell me about your crystal

23:03

Ball into the future. If you will, Mike crystal

23:05

Ball in the future. I mean, you

23:08

know, we are so uh, we are

23:10

so immersed in the reporting process a

23:12

day in and day out, you know, the first day right

23:15

after the Weinstein story broke and it started

23:17

to take off, I mean, we had never anticipated

23:20

that. Two nights before we

23:22

went to you know, we went to publish, Jody and I

23:24

actually stepped back. We've been working around the clock,

23:26

and we actually shared a cab back

23:28

to Brooklyn at about one o'clock in the morning, and

23:31

in that silent moment, turned to each other

23:33

and said, do you think anybody's going to read

23:35

this story? Does anybody know who Harvey Weinstein

23:37

is? Is anybody going to care? So? I think

23:40

if you're looking for like signs that we were predictors

23:42

of the future, that's certainly not

23:45

not the case. But yeah,

23:48

I mean I think that I I you know, I think that it's

23:50

not I would say that that, you know, I

23:52

think that you're actually asking the question

23:55

in a pretty within a pretty narrow

23:57

framework. I think that we've found among

24:00

are sort of male friends and colleagues

24:02

that they are uh, just as

24:04

concerned and in parents of sons,

24:07

I think are just as invested in this

24:09

issue. And I think that

24:11

you talked to parents of daughters and

24:13

sons, they will tell you that they really want

24:15

to make sure that we are able to figure

24:18

out emerge from this moment with some

24:21

uh sort of agreed upon standards that make

24:23

sure that everybody is treated fairly and

24:25

receives adequate protections, and that

24:27

that that it's a safe world for

24:30

you know, the girls and the boys. And I've got three

24:32

boys, a four year old, a three

24:34

year old, and a one year old, and

24:36

I want to go off on that tangent, but it's just it's it's

24:39

really remarkable how this plays

24:41

into that I'm saying to my son, going, you know, don't

24:43

touch anybody without their permission. That's

24:45

the story I don't boy with. But but I was filming

24:47

a documentary film with Jimmy

24:49

Toback, who is a dear friend

24:52

of mine, and in terms of sexual harassment,

24:54

there's a whole pile of hundreds

24:58

of women have a kisdom. Jimmy is

25:00

one of those people who believe that if my batting

25:03

average is ten percent. I

25:05

need to hit on a thousand women. I'm not excusing

25:07

his behavior. But Jimmy somebody who I had this

25:10

deep intellectual exploration

25:12

with about films we were going to do. We developed

25:14

a bunch of projects together. There were very few

25:16

people in the world you could have the kind of

25:18

conversation about movie making you could have with Jimmy.

25:21

And he was a very dear, dear friend of mine.

25:23

And then all this stuff comes up where they say he actually

25:25

physically assaulted um Selma

25:27

Blair. Now, when someone is your friend,

25:30

you tend to give it some credence. I

25:32

am the south Shore Long Island, middle class

25:35

white boy that I am someone

25:37

who your friend, right, I mean,

25:39

like, look, if your best friend was convicted of

25:41

murder, would you visit that person in jail?

25:44

That's like a it's a legit moral conundra.

25:47

I think plenty of us are friends with people who

25:49

have done terrible things wrong and

25:51

like, and that's an interesting decision,

25:53

right, like do his sins against other

25:56

people? There

25:58

are arguments for and against that eventing

26:00

you from having a friendship with him.

26:03

But but you know, Harvey Winston is different. I

26:06

never did business with Harvey. You know, years

26:08

ago, people would say blah bladeh blah and Oscars

26:10

and this and the wine Stein Company and

26:13

Mirramax any raped Rose McGowan,

26:15

like everybody knew that. So

26:18

what do you think explains that? Why do you think that people

26:20

in your world were able to accept that? First?

26:23

About this talking point? But I think

26:25

that that's I I myself would

26:27

not use that word, except because when I did the movie

26:29

The Aviator that Harvey produced, I didn't

26:31

even know he was involved. Scorsese himself

26:33

called me, and when Marty calls

26:35

you, you go. I arrived on the set in Montreal

26:38

to discover that Harvey was one of the producer, but

26:40

he was never there. So I do highlight

26:43

the fact that that accept is not the word. I

26:45

mean, nobody that I know accepted anything

26:47

about him. I was so curious

26:49

about something you said a minute ago, which

26:52

is when you were talking about Toback. You

26:54

did something really interesting, which is you kept

26:56

alternating between the past and the present

26:59

in terms of talking about whether he is your friend

27:01

or not. You said he was my friend, he has my

27:03

friend. He was my friend, he has my friend, So

27:06

would you still call him your friend? I'm just curious, Yes,

27:09

I don't know that he's sexually assaulted

27:11

women in auditions. I don't know that. I

27:13

don't know that well. But

27:15

to go back to your sort of distinction of

27:18

you know, it sounds like you're paying close attention to

27:20

this single criminal allegation

27:22

and his denial of a crime. No, I'm

27:24

only saying that there's gradations here, and I

27:26

think that what Weinsteine did was far

27:28

where and he had the power to do. There are also

27:31

gradations of the victims, right,

27:33

I mean that in the case of wine Stein, he was allegedly

27:35

praying on well known famous

27:37

actresses as well as you know, lowly

27:40

assistants in his companies. You know, the type of twenty

27:42

three year olds that you wouldn't recognize if you pass

27:44

them on the street, you know who for the most part,

27:46

had sort of disappeared without

27:49

a trace, without you know, ever becoming

27:51

public before this. And so

27:54

the question there, I think for you is some blair

27:56

aside these dozens of other women

27:58

who have come forward. They may not be famous,

28:02

but you know, I think it's still worth learning

28:05

those allegations. And here's

28:08

here's what I think would be a really interesting exercise.

28:11

The James Toback coverage was mainly done

28:13

by the l. A. Times. That's my impression. I

28:16

would go back and read those stories

28:18

and listen to the women because it sounds

28:20

like you may have missed something really important,

28:22

which is the sort of audition factor

28:25

involved. Then bring

28:27

charges against me. Well, remember you're

28:29

saying charges, which is a criminal

28:32

word. Um any civil cases

28:34

brought against Jimmy by those women, I

28:36

don't know. I don't We'd have to go

28:38

back and check, because again it was it was it was the l A

28:40

Times reporting, not ours. But I guess what

28:43

I'm saying is I think it's

28:45

worth really listening to

28:48

the women's experiences.

28:51

Even with the stories that are

28:53

allegations of sexual harassment and

28:55

not violent sexual assault, there's

28:57

a harm that's real, even if it

28:59

is and physical, which has to do with work,

29:02

and it can play out over a very long

29:04

time. Let's talk about Weinstein, because

29:06

those are you know, those are the victims we have interviewed

29:08

the most thoroughly. When you talk

29:11

to women who have really terrible

29:13

stories of sexual harassment by Weinstein,

29:16

part of what a lot of them feel now

29:18

as a sense of loss and grief

29:21

because even though you know he's

29:23

been outed and even though Um,

29:28

even though there's a sense of sort of like um

29:31

communal accountability towards him.

29:33

Even though the world now knows about so

29:35

many of these women's stories, what a

29:37

lot of them say is is that you

29:40

know, I can never be twenty three

29:42

years old again, I can never go audition

29:44

for those movies. I can never have my first

29:46

job in film again. And

29:49

my whole life is different because of the way

29:51

he treated me. And there's really nothing

29:53

that can never change that. Um.

29:56

Jodi, how long have you worked at the Times? I've

29:59

been there a long time. I'm like fifteen years.

30:00

And how would you describe

30:03

the sexual harassment policies of the Times?

30:05

Do you nobody

30:08

has sexually harassed anybody at the Times. I'll

30:10

tell you what, Alec I wouldn't

30:13

because that is not my job and that is

30:15

not Megan's job. The Times has like a

30:17

whole hr apparatus, and all these

30:19

editors and leaders who deal what do

30:21

you find satisfactories? Yeah, because, first

30:23

of all, listen, everybody has been affected

30:25

by me too. I don't think there's an organization including

30:28

we're sitting here at w n y C, which has had its

30:30

own issues over time. Every organization

30:32

is affected by this. It's close to all of us.

30:34

There have been issues at the Times, but Megan

30:37

and I have been very careful not to get involved

30:40

in any of them because we've got to do

30:42

our jobs, and our jobs. You

30:44

know, we're not the internal cops at the Times.

30:46

Our job is to uncover this information.

30:49

You know, you can't solve a problem.

30:52

You can, but do you see maybe there's there's an odd

30:54

component to that where you want

30:56

me to make sure I examine

30:58

Jimmy Kotobac in relation to Weinstein

31:01

as carefully as I should, But you don't think

31:03

you need to examine the Times as carefully

31:05

as mirror Max or Weinstein films.

31:07

No, because we like I mean, I was just curious

31:10

about your personal relationship with him, in your friendship,

31:12

So I was really I was I was really, I

31:14

was just really asking a question. But I don't

31:16

think you know work context. Megan and I bear

31:19

there are people at the Times who bear actual

31:22

responsibility for making

31:24

sure that we have sound policies

31:26

for preventing and addressing this kind

31:28

of behavior. That is not Megan or

31:31

I. Would

31:33

you have a comment about that, Megan, Yeah,

31:37

I mean there have been a variety of cases that have played

31:39

out at The New York Times that have been investigated,

31:42

and some have resulted in people

31:44

leaving the Times, um some have resulted

31:47

in people being placed on probation. Like it is

31:49

what what's clear to us, and we don't know the details

31:51

of those cases, but we know, like

31:53

we there is evidence of accountability

31:57

playing out throughout our own organization.

32:00

And you know what we can say beyond that is just

32:02

that when it comes to the reporting on sexual

32:04

harassment and sexual assault at the New

32:06

York Times, that you know, we have had

32:09

the support of editors

32:11

and beyond straight up to the very top

32:13

of the organization. You know, this was not this

32:15

is not working just by

32:17

women. This is you know, male editors, the

32:20

you know, male publishers. Are investigations

32:22

straddled the passing of the baton of

32:25

of the publishers. Both men were

32:27

like one in support

32:29

of this. And and so we you

32:31

know, we we we feel lucky to live to work

32:33

in an organization that has been willing

32:35

to put so many resources behind

32:38

this type of work. What do you think men

32:40

now need to learn about how to say

32:43

to you, I'm attracted to you. Is

32:46

that all going to change? Now should it change. Well,

32:48

listen, I think that there's agreement, um

32:51

that there is a hunger for

32:53

kind of a clearer sense of what the guidelines

32:56

should be in the workplace, but within

32:58

dating and more broadly in

33:00

relations of men and women. There's

33:03

no question that everybody can have sexually satisfying

33:05

lives, in romantic lives normal while

33:07

also figuring out how to treat

33:10

each other with respect. And I think that that's

33:12

you know, I think that the worst thing that could happen is

33:14

that people don't talk about these issues.

33:16

And if they're not, whether it's with their kids or

33:18

their you know, their partners, or in

33:20

the workplace, but in also in these interviews,

33:23

you know, like worst just so grateful that

33:25

you were willing to talk to us about,

33:27

for example, your relationship with Tobac,

33:29

and like, thank you for engaging with us. But that doesn't

33:32

mean I don't have work to do, which you've reminded

33:34

me of that again. I mean we I'm going to go

33:36

back and read those l A Times pieces and I'm going

33:38

to contact the writer, the principal writer of that.

33:40

See he'll come to the show and talk about that.

33:43

I think that's a great idea. I would also

33:45

just say that I think it's really important to recognize

33:47

that this is really abuse of power. This

33:50

is not just a sort of sexual preference

33:52

or a tool that's being used by unattractive

33:54

guys because they wouldn't otherwise be able

33:56

to get women's Yeah, that this is abusive

33:59

power. I

34:05

want to end by saying that

34:07

this was one of the more difficult and

34:09

on my part, least successful

34:12

interviews I've ever done. Both

34:16

of these writers know their subject,

34:18

and my own grasp of the me too

34:20

issue is in need of further

34:23

research. The writer they referred

34:25

to from The l A Times is Glenn

34:27

Whip, and we will surely

34:29

invite him on in soon. In

34:34

the meantime, the fiction between

34:37

believe the victim and innocent

34:39

until proven guilty continues.

34:42

Thanks to Jodie Canter and Megan

34:44

Tuey. I am reminded that we

34:46

are never done re examining

34:49

this issue and our own relationship

34:51

to it. Their book about their

34:53

Weinstein reporting and its fallout

34:56

is called she said Out

34:58

Now from Penguin Press. I'm

35:00

Alec Baldwin, and you're

35:03

listening to here's the thing