Acclaimed investigative journalist Bob Woodward was booed by a crowd while interviewing two New York Times journalists who wrote a book about reporting on the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal.
The event happened Thursday in Washington, D.C., and was attended by a number of reporters. Some took to Twitter to describe how the audience reacted to Woodward’s questioning of Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor. The event centered on the duo’s book, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement.
Woodward, 76, kept interrupting the women during the public interview, and he also tried to steer the conversation toward talking about sex, according to the Washington Post.
About 20 minutes into the interview, after Woodward continued to interrupt and ask for clarification on facts, one person shouted, “You’re interrupting her!”
Woodward at one point told Twohey and Kantor that they were dodging his question about the motivations behind Weinstein’s abuse, prompting a number of those in attendance to yell, “Stop!”
Journalist Kara Swisher tweeted that Woodward was “blowing this interview.”
“Interruptive, not focused on the women who were victimized by Harvey Weinstein and weirdly obsessed with that creep, it’s a exercise in how not to interview. The crowd no like,” Swisher said.
Ouch @realBobWoodward is blowing this interview with @mega2e and @jodikantor on their book “She Said.” Interruptive, not focused on the women who were victimized by Harvey Weinstein and weirdly obsessed with that creep, it’s a exercise in how not to interview. The crowd no like. pic.twitter.com/sEvEZPOlmG
— Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) October 3, 2019
Some people were said to have walked out of the event.
Listening to @jodikantor and @mega2e discuss their remarkable reporting, and Bob Woodward keeps cutting them off. He’s also repeatedly asking them why Weinstein did this, and audience is protesting/yelling back/walking out pic.twitter.com/6D3zibgBHo
— Kira Lerner (@kira_lerner) October 2, 2019
At one point, Woodward accused the two of dodging a question, to which Kantor responded, “I’ll tell you what we know. It’s that this story is an X-ray into power and how power works.”
“It’s also about sex, isn’t it?” Woodward queried but was met by derision from the audience, with many shouting, “No!”
Woodward addressed the event in an email afterward.
“As a longtime believer in the First Amendment, I am glad people got to express themselves. Jodi and Megan signed a copy of their book for me after the session, which I enjoyed very much, and said, ‘Thank you for the fabulous questions.’ So there may be a difference of opinion,” he wrote.
Twohey and Kantor didn’t address the matter in an email after the event.
“We’re just starting our book tour, and we’re grateful to all the moderators — Bob Woodward, Katie Couric, America Ferrera and many others — who have agreed to join us onstage,” they wrote.
“We welcome all questions, from them and especially from the audience, because each one is an opportunity to relate the wrenching decisions that many of our sources had to make and grapple with MeToo as an example and test of social change in our time,” the two added.
