There's Only One Hero in the Harvey Weinstein Saga: Ronan Farrow

On Tuesday the New Yorker published Ronan Farrow’s expose of Harvey Weinstein, describing in detail the famous Hollywood producer’s long history of sexual abuse and assaults of actresses and other women in the movie industry. Coming on the heels of a New York Times article published last Thursday about Weinstein, the Farrow article seems to clinch the case against a major figure in the world of entertainment, media, and politics.

The question is why, after years of protecting Weinstein, did the American press publish two pieces about him in less than a week? Was it because after stories detailing the sex scandals of other famous and powerful men—among others, Donald Trump, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and Bill Cosby—the political and entertainment media realized it was time at last to clean its own house?

No.

We will come in short order to the role played by the media, including the two outlets that published accounts of Weinstein’s depredations. We shall see that these press institutions hardly merit the victorious campaign pennants that their media peers have hung from their windows. There is only one champion in this story: Ronan Farrow.

“He's very, very smart,” says a journalist friend who has met Ronan Farrow socially. “And he's a very, very well-trained graduate of the best law school in America, Yale. And obviously, his entire existence was at stake here. This is what real journalism looks like, remember?”