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[[[["She said," quotes some of the people who helped Harvey Weinstein escape control. ]
And then there was Gloria Allred, the feminist advocate of the crusade, whose law firm, in 2004, had negotiated a confidentiality agreement for one of the victims of Weinstein; the company pocketed 40% of the colony. "While the lawyer had a reputation for giving voice to a female victim," write Kantor and Twohey, "part of his job and income was to negotiate secret deals that silenced them and have buried allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault, "continued Allred. The same is true for women who have been abused by Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and Olympic gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. In 2017, after a group of California lawyers persuaded a state legislator to consider a bill banning confidentiality clauses muzzling victims of sexual harassment, Allred denounced the move and threatened to continue the attack. Legislator Connie Leyva quickly dismissed the idea. (A year later, Leyva introduced such a bill that was enacted.)
Lisa Bloom, Allred's daughter, is probably the most dreadful character in this constellation of collaborators and facilitators. A lawyer also known for winning non-disclosure agreements regarding sexual harassment, Bloom was retained by Weinstein (who had also bought the rights to the film from his book). In a memorable memo addressed to Weinstein, Bloom outlined his game plan: initiate "online counter campaigns", publish articles in the press describing one of his accusers as a "pathological liar", founding a foundation Weinstein "on gender equality" and a "reputation management company" to remove negative articles on Google. Oh, and that little gem: "You and I are publicly publishing a preventive interview where you talk about evolving on women's issues, motivated by the death of your mother, Trump's pussy-catching tape, and maybe bad, hurtful and unfounded rumors about you. … you should be the hero of the story, not the bad guy. This is very feasible.
"She said" contains a second account of what is feasible against great difficulties: how two unrelated journalists in Hollywood and almost nobody wanting to make a record were able to penetrate this film omerta and expose what is behind all this. This is the deepest level of the book, the history of writing a story, indicated in the choice of chapter titles such as "The first phone call" and "Who is the record? ". Kantor and Twohey turned news into an uncompromising and suspicious story of their journalistic journey, a striking detail that explains how they managed to "work in empty spaces" to corroborate allegations that had been pursued and abandoned by many journalists. "She said" reads a bit like a feminist "All the men of the president".
Kantor and Twohey guide us through the tedious, meticulous and unregulated work of gathering evidence, gaining the trust of timid victims, and maneuvering the barricades that block the passage to a publishable article. Along the way, we are witnessing the amount of institutional support needed for such a long effort. Kantor and Twohey insist throughout the book to emphasize their reliance on a multi-level editorial team, composed of rigorous research assistants such as Grace Ashford, who analyze the data on the ################################################################################### They are employed by the government and are looking for a former key assistant to Miramax at the end of the 1980s, Weinstein's film. production company, in seasoned hands as Times investigative reporter Rebecca Corbett. "A few six to two, skeptical, scrupulous and allergic to glitzy or exaggeration," write Kantor and Twohey, "but her profile is so low that she has barely surfaced in Google's search results." . His ambition was journalistic and not personal. The night before the first article appeared, Corbett remained in the newsroom until dawn, weighing and rethinking every word.
In this sense, "She Said" is a flawless description of what makes so-called "traditional" journalism so powerful. Ironically, the #MeToo movement that Kantor and Twohey's articles on Weinstein have helped to diffuse the opposite message: the best way to highlight the injustices is to get rid of the "guardians" and let go on Twitter, which we will only get. to the "truth" when the establishment is slaughtered and no one is in charge.
[[[[Read: "I'm Harvey Weinstein – you know what I can do."]
It may be that, as political writer Lee Smith wrote in The Weekly Standard, some journalists have protected Weinstein in part by a wacky illusion that the Hollywood rainmaker would rain them one day. buying their items for very profitable movies. And there is no doubt that the # MeToo movement has prompted mainstream media to take these stories more seriously. Could Vanity Fair's editor today omit allegations of sexual assault in Jeffrey Epstein's profile, as was the case in 2003? Nevertheless, the sexual predators of the major leagues that were brought to justice at the time #MeToo were not translated by campaigns of murmurs on the Internet but by good reports to the old: O & # 39; Reilly by The Times, Nassar by The Indianapolis Star, Epstein by the Miami Herald, Roy Moore by the Washington Post, Weinstein by The Times and The New Yorker. "The story of Weinstein had an impact, the authors note, partly because she had achieved something that in 2018 seemed rare and valuable: a broad consensus on the facts."
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