She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement

by Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey

Overview

The instant New York Times bestseller.

"An instant classic of investigative journalism...‘All the President’s Men’ for the Me Too era." — Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters who broke the news of Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment and abuse for the New York Times, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the thrilling untold story of their investigation and its consequences for the #MeToo movement

For many years, reporters had tried to get to the truth about Harvey Weinstein’s treatment of women. Rumors of wrongdoing had long circulated. But in 2017, when Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey began their investigation into the prominent Hollywood producer for the New York Times, his name was still synonymous with power. During months of confidential interviews with top actresses, former Weinstein employees, and other sources, many disturbing and long-buried allegations were unearthed, and a web of onerous secret payouts and nondisclosure agreements was revealed. These shadowy settlements had long been used to hide sexual harassment and abuse, but with a breakthrough reporting technique Kantor and Twohey helped to expose it. But Weinstein had evaded scrutiny in the past, and he was not going down without a fight; he employed a team of high-profile lawyers, private investigators, and other allies to thwart the investigation. When Kantor and Twohey were finally able to convince some sources to go on the record, a dramatic final showdown between Weinstein and the New York Times was set in motion.
 
Nothing could have prepared Kantor and Twohey for what followed the publication of their initial Weinstein story on October 5, 2017. Within days, a veritable Pandora’s box of sexual harassment and abuse was opened. Women all over the world came forward with their own traumatic stories. Over the next twelve months, hundreds of men from every walk of life and industry were outed following allegations of wrongdoing. But did too much change—or not enough? Those questions hung in the air months later as Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court, and Christine Blasey Ford came forward to testify that he had assaulted her decades earlier. Kantor and Twohey, who had unique access to Ford and her team, bring to light the odyssey that led her to come forward, the overwhelming forces that came to bear on her, and what happened after she shared her allegation with the world.
 
In the tradition of great investigative journalism, She Said tells a thrilling story about the power of truth, with shocking new information from hidden sources. Kantor and Twohey describe not only the consequences of their reporting for the #MeToo movement, but the inspiring and affecting journeys of the women who spoke up—for the sake of other women, for future generations, and for themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525560340
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/10/2019
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey are investigative reporters at the New York Times. Kantor has focused on the workplace in her reporting, and particularly the treatment of women, covered two presidential campaigns, and is the author of The Obamas. Twohey has focused much of her attention on the treatment of women and children, and, in 2014, as a reporter with Reuters News, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. Kantor and Twohey shared numerous honors for breaking the Harvey Weinstein story, including a George Polk Award, and, along with colleagues, the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Read an Excerpt

Preface

In 2017, when we began our investigation of Harvey Weinstein for the New York Times, women held more power than ever before. The number of jobs once held almost exclusively by men—police officer, soldier, airline pilot—had narrowed almost to a vanishing point. Women led nations including Germany and the United Kingdom, and companies such as General Motors and PepsiCo. In one year of work, it was possible for a thirtysomething-year-old woman to make more money than all of her female ancestors had made in their combined lifetimes.

But all too often, women were sexually harassed with impunity. Female scientists and waitresses, cheerleaders, executives, and factory workers had to smile past gropes, leers, or unwelcome advances to get the next tip, paycheck, or raise. Sexual harassment was against the law—but it was also routine in some jobs. Women who spoke up were frequently dismissed or denigrated. Victims were often hidden and isolated from one another. Their best option, many people agreed, was to accept money as some form of reparation, in exchange for silence.

The perpetrators, meanwhile, frequently sailed to ever-higher levels of success and praise. Harassers were often accepted, or even cheered, as mis- chievous bad boys. Serious consequences were rare. Megan wrote some of the original articles in which women alleged that Donald J. Trump preyed on them—and then she covered his triumph in the 2016 election.

After we broke the story of Weinstein’s alleged sexual harassment and abuse on October 5, 2017, we watched with astonishment as a dam wall broke. Millions of women around the world told their own stories of mistreatment. Large numbers of men suddenly had to answer for their predatory behavior, a moment of accountability without precedent. Journalism had helped inspire a paradigm shift. Our work was only one driver of that change, which had been building for years, thanks to the efforts of pio- neering feminists and legal scholars; Anita Hill; Tarana Burke, the activist who founded the #MeToo movement; and many others, including our fellow journalists.


But seeing our own hard-won investigative discoveries help realign attitudes left us asking, Why this story? As one of our editors pointed out, Harvey Weinstein wasn’t even that famous. In a world in which so much feels stuck, how does this sort of seismic social change occur?

We embarked on this book to answer those questions. Nothing about the change was inevitable or foretold. In these pages, we describe the motivations and wrenching, risky decisions of the first brave sources to break the silence surrounding Weinstein. Laura Madden, a former assistant to Weinstein and a stay-at-home mother in Wales, spoke out just as she was reeling from divorce and about to undergo post-cancer breast surgery. Ashley Judd put her career on the line, spurred by a little-known period in her life when she stepped away from Hollywood to immerse herself in big-picture thinking about gender equality. Zelda Perkins, a London producer whose complaints against Weinstein had been sup- pressed by an agreement she had signed two decades before, spoke to us despite potential legal and financial retribution. A longtime Weinstein employee, increasingly troubled by what he knew, played a key, and previ- ously undisclosed, role in helping us to finally unmask his boss. We intend the title, She Said, as a complicated one: We write about those who did speak out, along with other women who chose not to, and the nuances of how and when and why.

This is also a story about investigative journalism, beginning with the first uncertain days of our reporting, when we knew very little and almost no one would speak to us. We describe how we coaxed out secrets, pinned down information, and pursued the truth about a powerful man even as he used underhanded tactics to try to sabotage our work. We have also, for the first time, reconstructed our final showdown with the producer—his last stand—in the offices of the New York Times right before publication, as he realized he was cornered.


Our Weinstein reporting took place at a time of accusations of “fake news,” as the very notion of a national consensus on truth seemed to be fracturing. But the impact of the Weinstein revelations was so great in part because we and other journalists were able to establish a clear and over- whelming body of evidence of wrongdoing. In these pages, we explain how we have documented a pattern of behavior based on first-person accounts, financial and legal records, company memos, and other revealing materi- als. In the wake of our work, there was little public debate about what Weinstein had done to women; it was about what should be done in response. But Weinstein has continued to deny all allegations of non- consensual sex, and has repeatedly asserted that our reporting is incorrect. “What you have here are allegations and accusations, but you do not have absolute facts,” a spokesman said when we asked for a response to the rev- elations presented here.

This book toggles between what we learned during the course of our original work on Weinstein in 2017 and the substantial amount of information we’ve gathered since. Much of the new reporting we present about Weinstein helps illustrate how the legal system and corporate culture has served to silence victims and still inhibits change. Businesses are co-opted into protecting predators. Some advocates for women profit from a settle- ment system that covers up misdeeds. Many people who glimpse the problem—like Bob Weinstein, Harvey’s brother and business partner, who granted extensive interviews for this book—do little to try and stop it.
As we write this, in May 2019, Weinstein awaits a criminal trial for al- leged rape and other sexual abuse and faces a volley of civil suits, in which actresses, former employees, and others are seeking to hold him financially accountable. No matter the outcome of those cases, we hope this book will serve as a lasting record of Weinstein’s legacy: his exploitation of the work- place to manipulate, pressure, and terrorize women.

In the months after we broke the Weinstein story, as the #MeToo movement exploded, so did new debates about topics ranging from date rape to child sexual abuse to gender discrimination and even to awkward encoun- ters at parties. This made the public conversation feel rich and searching, but also confusing: Were the goals to eliminate sexual harassment, reform the criminal justice system, smash the patriarchy, or flirt without giving offense? Had the reckoning gone too far, with innocent men tarnished with less-than-convincing proof, or not far enough, with a frustrating lack of systemic change?


Nearly a year to the day after our Weinstein story was published, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor from California, appeared before a U.S. Senate committee and accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh, then nominated to the Supreme Court, of sexually assaulting her while drunk in high school. He furiously denied the allegation. Some saw Ford as the ultimate hero of the #MeToo movement. Others saw her as a symbol of overreach—a living justification for the mounting backlash.
We saw her as the protagonist of one of the most complex and revealing “she said” stories yet, especially once we began to learn how much about her path to that Senate testimony was not publicly understood. Jodi watched from the hearing room, observed some of her legal team as they worked, and met her the next morning. In December, Megan conducted the first post-hearing interview of Ford, over a breakfast in Palo Alto. In the following months, she had dozens of hours of additional interviews with Ford about how she came to raise her voice and what the consequences were. We also spoke with others who shaped and witnessed her experience. We tell the story of Ford’s journey to Washington and how an overwhelming array of viewpoints, institutions, political forces, and fears all came to bear on her.

Many people wonder how Ford has fared since her testimony. The final chapter of this book consists of a unique group interview, in which we brought together some of the women we reported on, including Ford, across these different stories. But something larger is at stake in Ford’s odyssey too: that continued question of what drives and impedes progress. The #MeToo movement is an example of social change in our time but is also a test of it: In this fractured environment, will all of us be able to forge a new set of mutually fair rules and protections?

This book recounts two astounding years in the life of women in the United States and beyond. That history belongs to all of us who lived it: Unlike some journalistic investigations that deal with locked-away government or corporate secrets, this one is about experiences many of us recognize from our own lives, workplaces, families, and schools. But we wrote this book to bring you as close as we could to"ground zero"
To relate those events as directly and authentically as possible, we have incorporated transcripts of interviews, emails, and other primary docu- ments. There are notes from the first conversations we had with movie stars about Weinstein, a searching letter that Bob Weinstein wrote to his brother, excerpts from Ford’s texts, and many other firsthand materials. Some of what we share was originally off the record, but through additional reporting, including returning to the parties involved, we were able to include it here. We were able to depict conversations and events that we did not witness firsthand through records and interviews. All told, this book is based on three years of reporting and hundreds of interviews conducted from London to Palo Alto; the endnotes give a detailed accounting of which information we learned from which sources and records.

Finally, this book is a chronicle of the partnership we developed as we worked to understand these events. To avoid confusion, we write about ourselves in the third person. (In a first-person account of our reporting, which was collaborative but often involved us following separate threads, “I” could be either Jodi or Megan.) So before we slip into that way of telling the story, we want to say, in our own voices: Thank you for joining our partnership for the duration of these pages, for puzzling through these events and clues as we have, for witnessing what we witnessed, and hearing what we heard.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Chapter 1 The First Phone Call 7

Chapter 2 Hollywood Secrets 27

Chapter 3 How to Silence a Victim 49

Chapter 4 "Positive Reputation Management" 79

Chapter 5 A Company's Complicity 105

Chapter 6 "Who Else is on the Record?" 139

Chapter 7 "There Will be a Movement" 161

Chapter 8 The Beachside Dilemma 181

Chapter 9 "I Can't Guarantee I'll Go to DC" 211

Epilogue: The Gathering 247

Acknowledgments 263

Notes 267

Index 299

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/16/2019

The dogged investigative journalism that brought down Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein is spotlighted in this gripping memoir. New York Times reporters Kantor (The Obamas) and Twohey recount their months-long probe, which uncovered claims that Weinstein sexually assaulted or harassed many women, from actors Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow to employees at his company; the Times exposé led to formal rape charges and sparked the #MeToo movement. (Later chapters profile Christine Blasey Ford, the psychologist who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of assault.) The authors deliver the sordid details—the seemingly innocent hotel-room meetings, the sudden demands for naked massages, and worse—but focus on the reporting: stakeouts of sources, document searches, assignations with an informant, fencing matches as they wormed information out of Weinstein’s flunkies, and the bullying they received from Weinstein himself, a larger-than-life figure of bluster, menace, and self-pity. Along the way, they grapple with the apparatus of secrecy protecting Weinstein—the colleagues and lawyers who covered up abuses, the confidential settlements that legally silenced some accusers, and the fear of industry retaliation that kept others from speaking out. The result is a crackerjack journalistic thriller that becomes a revealing study of the culture that enables sexual misconduct. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

A binge-read of a book, propelled, for the most part, by a clear, adrenaline-spiking ticktock of how their stories came together, and studded with all manner of new astonishing details...This is Kantor and Twohey’s story and one everyone should read for a panoply of reasons. By simply recounting their reporting, the two offer a masterful explanation of how a man like Weinstein is allowed to abuse his power and many women for so long in something approaching plain sight…In many ways, “She Said” is more significant than “All the President’s Men,” and not just because journalism is currently under siege, financially and politically, in a way it was not in the 1970s. There was a finite number of people responsible for the crimes of the Nixon administration; the alleged crimes of Harvey Weinstein are also the crimes of our culture, and they continue to be committed every day by many men all around the world. Although now, one hopes, without as much silence, secrecy and cultural complacency.” — Los Angeles Times Review 

“'She Said,' a new book detailing the astonishing behind-the-scenes of the New York Times’s bombshell Harvey Weinstein exposé, is an instant classic of investigative journalism. If your jaw dropped at the newspaper’s original allegations against the predatory movie mogul, prepare for it to hit the floor as authors Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey recount how they uncovered the story: secret meetings, harrowing phone calls, private text exchanges with A-list actresses agonizing over whether to go on the record. Ashley Judd plays the stoic warrior; Gwyneth Paltrow, the circumspect liaison who tries to help the reporters find other sources.” – Monica Hesse, The Washington Post
 
“‘She Said,’ a chronicle of the #MeToo era by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, reveals the power of women who, together, refused to stay silent.” – The New Republic
 
“‘She Said’ is riveting and, crafted by two of the country's most talented journalists, a vibrant, cinematic read.”— CNN 

“Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey are two names that future generations will read about in history books.” — Mashable
 
“Kantor and Twohey have crafted their news dispatches into a seamless and suspenseful account of their reportorial journey, a gripping blow-by-blow of how they managed, “working in the blank spaces between the words,” to corroborate allegations that had been chased and abandoned by multiple journalists before them. . . Watching Kantor and Twohey pursue their goal while guarding each other’s back is as exhilarating as watching Megan Rapinoe and Crystal Dunn on the pitch. . . It turns out we did need to hear more about Weinstein — and the “more” that Kantor and Twohey give us draws an important distinction between the trendy ethic of hashtag justice and the disciplined professionalism and institutional heft that actually got the job done.”—Susan Faludi, New York Times Book Review
 
“An instant classic of investigative journalism. The book is packed with reluctant sources, emotional interviews, clandestine meetings, impatient editors, secret documents, late-night door knocks, toady lawyers and showdowns with Weinstein himself. The cumulative effect is almost cinematic, a sort of “All the President’s Men” for the Me Too era, except the men are women, and they don’t protect the boss, they take him down.”— Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post
 
“She Said is first and foremost an account of incredible reporting, the kind that takes time, diligence and the kind of institutional support many newspapers can no longer afford. For journalist readers, it is a chance to watch experts at work. And this book is a rare view for nonjournalists into the exacting and rigorous process of quality reporting, and it acts as an implicit counterargument to rising, ambient skepticism of the press. Kantor and Twohey show the background research they ran on sources, to protect both them and the paper, the careful way they documented and substantiated information, and their extraordinary precision in acquiring proof. . . Deeply suspenseful, a kind of less swaggering All the President's Men.”—NPR
 
“Kantor and Twohey, writing a professional memoir that often reads as a riveting work of true crime, offer damning evidence for what is by now a familiar theme: a legal system that promises blindness and balance—the mechanisms through which truth might be finally determined—and too often comes up short. She Said finds Kantor and Twohey (and the extensive team of editors, lawyers, and fact-checkers who bolster their work) exposing not merely Weinstein, but also the system that kept him, at the expense of so many others, safe... So while there is triumph in She Said—the book is a tale of investigative reporting’s power to nudge the world out of its complacencies—there is also a sense of necessary open-endedness... The journalist offers the evidence; it is for the rest of us to decide what the justice looks like.”—The Atlantic

“Kantor and Twohey are godsends…their reporting and their commitment were pivotal in the #MeToo movement, and this history is flush with gratitude for the women who trusted them with their stories.” – The Oregonian 

From the Publisher

11/08/2019

New York Times journalists Kantor and Twohey recount their Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting of sexual assault allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein in this focused account of their investigative process, including contacting sources, convincing them to tell their stories, and scouring public records for evidence of payoffs and corroboration. This approach could easily delve too much into minutiae, but Kantor and Twohey's explanations are cohesive, concise, and fascinating. Weinstein's efforts to silence the story are particularly nerve wracking, but the authors show well how the allegations gave momentum to the Me Too movement and empowered more victims of sexual assault to come forward with their stories of abuse. As a counterpoint to the successful ousting of Weinstein from his company, Kantor and Twohey include a report of Christine Blasey Ford's testimony against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Sources are brought together at the end of the book to reflect on their experiences, as are varied reactions of the public to their allegations. VERDICT A compelling accounting of the events that helped ignite Me Too. Highly recommended for readers interested in social justice and the reporting process.—Rebekah Kati, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Library Journal

2019-09-19
A behind-the-scenes look at the Harvey Weinstein case as told by the two New York Times journalists who broke the story.

When Kantor (The Obamas, 2012) and Twohey published their 2017 article series implicating Weinstein in a 30-year-long sexual misconduct scandal, it garnered worldwide attention, earned the news outlet the Pulitzer Prize, and briskly vaporized the Hollywood film producer's career and reputation. In vivid, cinematic fashion, the authors describe the risky investigation from its first probing telephone calls and emails to the challenges of obtaining recorded interviews. Despite episodes of self-doubt, an avalanche of testimonials from victimized women started pouring in. Kantor and Twohey focus on the details of how they doggedly procured sources, chased leads, and obtained enough concrete evidence to blow the case open. As the attestations began to accumulate, so did the trouble, including calculated interference and intimidation from a supposed Weinstein-hired Israeli intelligence organization, which attempted to sabotage the entire endeavor. The authors also examine the nature of wealth and power and how the corruption of privilege infected Weinstein, Miramax, and his expansive web of malefactors, which included employees, publicists, and the corporate machines aligned alongside him who overlooked his reprehensive behavior and supervised his confidential settlements to the women he abused. The authors chronicle the early testimonies from Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd as well as an initially reluctant Rose McGowan, who accused Weinstein of raping her and labeled his notorious behavior "an open secret in Hollywood/Media." The journalists' work helped ignite the burgeoning #MeToo movement and inspired a massive cultural sea change, but they also acknowledge the grueling work ahead, as evidenced in the book's concluding chapters featuring Christine Blasey Ford, who shares her personal insights on the steamrolled Supreme Court appointment of Brett Kavanaugh. Both admirable and suspenseful, the narrative is a fitting testament to the power of persistence and dedication in exposing critical crimes.

Keenly executed, exemplary spadework dedicated to justice for all women caught in the crosshairs of privileged power.

Kirkus Reviews

The #MeToo movement gains a firsthand account from Kantor and Twohey, reporters who were at the center of investigating Harvey Weinstein and his transgressions and also were involved with recounting the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford in the lead-up to the Brett Kavanaugh Senate Confirmation Hearings. Narrator Rebecca Lowman’s even delivery and enunciation style can sound too stoic, or even laconic, at times for these highly emotional stories. Though her soft, slightly nasal voice maintains the listener’s attention, particularly during confrontational scenes, such as those between the authors and Weinstein, her use of tonal variety overall is inconsistent. Nonetheless, the authors’ discussion of the challenges they faced in uncovering these stories and their observations on the manipulation and maligning of the victims will keep the listener’s attention. L.E. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2020 - AudioFile

The #MeToo movement gains a firsthand account from Kantor and Twohey, reporters who were at the center of investigating Harvey Weinstein and his transgressions and also were involved with recounting the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford in the lead-up to the Brett Kavanaugh Senate Confirmation Hearings. Narrator Rebecca Lowman’s even delivery and enunciation style can sound too stoic, or even laconic, at times for these highly emotional stories. Though her soft, slightly nasal voice maintains the listener’s attention, particularly during confrontational scenes, such as those between the authors and Weinstein, her use of tonal variety overall is inconsistent. Nonetheless, the authors’ discussion of the challenges they faced in uncovering these stories and their observations on the manipulation and maligning of the victims will keep the listener’s attention. L.E. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2020 - AudioFile