Facing Down the Network That Protected Harvey Weinstein
- 7 years ago
Facing Down the Network That Protected Harvey Weinstein
As The Times’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, told me, “Harvey Weinstein is an advertiser – but that never even crossed my mind.”
Mr. Baquet added that he did not know how much the Weinstein Company spent to advertise its movies in The Times,
but the newspaper was too large to be influenced by any amount.
Because of the stories that have come out over the last week concerning the complaints about the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, including two deeply reported New York Times investigative stories and an 8,000-word report from The New Yorker, readers now know all about his alleged pattern of sexual misconduct
that victimized numerous women stretching back decades.
“Harvey Weinstein a few times reached out to me to talk about the story,
and I told him I did not think it was appropriate for him to talk to the executive editor about a story,” Mr. Baquet said.
“That’s the other thing – you have to have the size and the history to not even take that into account.”
It costs serious money to give two reporters the go-ahead to devote months to an article
that may or may not pan out, as The Times did in the case of Mr. Weinstein, especially as legal threats loom.
Bruce Headlam, a former editor for the late Times media columnist David Carr, told me
that Mr. Carr twice came close to nailing down a story about abuses committed by Mr. Weinstein.
Benza, a former gossip columnist at The Daily News – and, for a time, my colleague on the paper’s “Hot Copy” gossip column – described how Mr. Weinstein
would provide him with access to the director Quentin Tarantino or the actress Salma Hayek as they were making their way into Hollywood’s stratosphere.
As The Times’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, told me, “Harvey Weinstein is an advertiser – but that never even crossed my mind.”
Mr. Baquet added that he did not know how much the Weinstein Company spent to advertise its movies in The Times,
but the newspaper was too large to be influenced by any amount.
Because of the stories that have come out over the last week concerning the complaints about the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, including two deeply reported New York Times investigative stories and an 8,000-word report from The New Yorker, readers now know all about his alleged pattern of sexual misconduct
that victimized numerous women stretching back decades.
“Harvey Weinstein a few times reached out to me to talk about the story,
and I told him I did not think it was appropriate for him to talk to the executive editor about a story,” Mr. Baquet said.
“That’s the other thing – you have to have the size and the history to not even take that into account.”
It costs serious money to give two reporters the go-ahead to devote months to an article
that may or may not pan out, as The Times did in the case of Mr. Weinstein, especially as legal threats loom.
Bruce Headlam, a former editor for the late Times media columnist David Carr, told me
that Mr. Carr twice came close to nailing down a story about abuses committed by Mr. Weinstein.
Benza, a former gossip columnist at The Daily News – and, for a time, my colleague on the paper’s “Hot Copy” gossip column – described how Mr. Weinstein
would provide him with access to the director Quentin Tarantino or the actress Salma Hayek as they were making their way into Hollywood’s stratosphere.