NBC News has yet to officially publicly address growing criticism that the network intentionally spiked a story that could have broke open the sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein.
An NBC spokesperson on Wednesday did not return a request for comment or statement from the Washington Examiner.
After journalist Ronan Farrow, a former NBC employee and MSNBC anchor, published his own story about the scandal in New Yorker magazine, some wondered why NBC — to which Farrow said he first offered the story — did not run it itself.
“Speaking of media complicity ask yourself why NBC reporter @RonanFarrow wrote this for The New Yorker,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper said Tuesday on Twitter, following the story’s publication.
Farrow’s story featured other alleged victims of Weinstein’s abuse and came with a 2015 audio recording of Weinstein apparently admitting to having groped one model.
Farrow appeared Tuesday night on MSNBC’s “Maddow” and host Rachel Maddow asked why he published the story with the New Yorker rather than NBC.
“You would have to ask NBC and NBC executives about the details of that story,” he said. “I’m not going to comment on any news organization’s story that they did or didn’t run.”
He added, “there are now reports emerging publicly about the kinds of pressure that news organizations face in this [scandal], and that is real.”
The Daily Beast published a story Wednesday morning with an unnamed NBC source who defended the network.
“Ronan has had a non-exclusive relationship with NBC News for the last year,” the source said. “He brought NBC News early reporting [on Weinstein] that didn’t meet the standard to go forward with a story; it was nowhere close to what ultimately ran in the New York Times or the New Yorker — for example, at that time he didn’t have one accuser willing to go on the record or identify themselves.”
Freelance journalist Yashar Ali wrote Wednesday on Twitter, again citing an unnamed NBC source, that a townhall meeting at the network included NBC News President Noah Oppenheim telling staff there was no attempt at spiking or delaying any story related to Weinstein.
“Saying NBC didn’t have same story that ended up in New Yorker and idea NBC would sit on a story because of powerful person is not real,” Ali said his source told him of Oppenheim’s remarks.
Before the New York Times broke the story about the allegations late last week, there were reports that both the Times and Farrow were chasing the story. The Times published its version first last Thursday and Farrow’s ran five days later.
