Ronan Farrow blasted back at NBC News chief Andy Lack on Monday for a memo that said Farrow’s bombshell reporting on Harvey Weinstein was not “fit for broadcast” when he was working at the network.
In a tweet sent hours after Lack’s memo to staffers became public, Farrow said the network’s account “contains numerous false or misleading statements.”
Farrow, who shared a Pulitzer Prize when his report on accusations of sexual misconduct against the Hollywood mogul was subsequently published by The New Yorker, disputed the network’s claim that after eight months of reporting Farrow “still did not have a single victim or witness willing to go on the record.”
According to Farrow, “their list of sources is incomplete and omits women who were either identified in the NBC story or were willing to be.”
Indeed, Weinstein accuser Emily Nestor — who was on the record in Farrow’s New Yorker piece — issued a statement to the New York Times’ John Koblin saying that another accuser, Ambra Gutierrez, “had always been willing to allow Farrow to identify her by name.” She also said that she “had tentatively offered to either to attach my name to the interview in silhouette or potentially even reshoot the interview with my face visible.”
In a statement to the Times, a rep for NBC News disputed Nestor’s account of her willingness to be named.
Emily Nestor, who was on the record in Ronan Farrow's New Yorker Harvey Weinstein harassment story, has just released a statement saying that she was prepared to be on the record but NBC was "not interested" pic.twitter.com/uJXvroG7Gl
— John Koblin (@koblin) September 4, 2018
Farrow also disputed other elements of Lack’s memo, including how he was allowed to take his reporting to another outlet.
“The suggestion to take the story to another outlet was first raised by NBC, not me,” Farrow tweeted. “and I took them up on it only after it became clear that I was being blocked from further reporting.”
https://twitter.com/RonanFarrow/status/1036825901676154880