Ronan Farrow, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on sexual misconduct allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, says his former employer, NBC News, tried to block his reporting and then misled the public about why it did so.
“I’ve avoided commenting on the specifics of NBC’s role in the Weinstein story to keep the focus on the women and their allegations,” Farrow said in a statement. “But executives there have now produced a memo that contains numerous false or misleading statements, so I’ll say briefly: their list of sources is incomplete and omits women who were either identified in the NBC story or offered to be.”
[Related: Tucker Carlson predicts ‘extremely ugly’ week for NBC]
Farrow said the suggestion that he take his story elsewhere was originally brought up by NBC.
“I took them up on it only after it became clear that I was being blocked from further reporting,” he said, adding that the story was “twice cleared” for publication but was “blocked” by company executives who refused to allow Farrow to seek comment from Weinstein.
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) September 4, 2018
Ronan released the statement after NBC News Chairman Andy Lack disputed the allegations that the news outlet tried to kill Farrow’s reporting, as had been alleged by Farrow’s former producer. The network has argued that Farrow’s reporting was not yet fit to broadcast, and Farrow had asked to take his reporting elsewhere.
Farrow said Monday that he’ll say more about the controversy when the time is right, possibly referring to his upcoming book “Catch & Kill.”
