A Brief Book Review of Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow
“Tough stories don’t get told without companies being willing to weather the storm.” - Ronan Farrow
“‘Tortious interference’? That sounds like a disease caught by a radio.” - Al Pacino as Lowell Bergman in The Insider (1999)
There’s a thread running through Ronan Farrow’s masterful Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators (2019) that felt like déjà vu. In the book, executives at NBC News, Farrow’s employer during most of the events of the book, are trying to explain to him why they’re blocking his reporting efforts. Farrow was attempting to gather evidence related to the sex crimes and coverups of Hollywood producer and political fundraiser Harvey Weinstein. Despite making much progress securing the trust and participation of some of Weinstein’s victims, Farrow was ordered by NBC News brass to stop. NBC News feared being accused of something called “tortious interference”. For those unacquainted with the term, “tortious interference” is the legal notion that a third-party might be financially liable if it interferes with the contract of two others. In this case, the contractual interference might be encouraging Weinstein’s victims to violate the non-disclosure agreements they had signed with Weinstein in exchange for hush money after his crimes. Threatening to pursue damages for interference is a tactic powerful, wealthy bullies often use. It’s in service of the goal of silencing whistleblowers and the journalists hoping to tell their stories. Well, to be more accurate, it’s not usually the journalists who get intimidated; it’s the business leaders of the companies they work for.
This intimidation was dramatized tremendously well in Michael Mann’s brilliant film The Insider (1999), based on a true story of tobacco industry malfeasance and coverups at CBS News. In the film, a producer for CBS’s weekly news program 60 Minutes, Lowell Bergman (played by Al Pacino), confronts CBS News leadership unwilling to air a damning interview with a tobacco industry whistleblower, Jeffrey Wigand (played by Russell Crowe). The unwillingness of CBS corporate leadership stemmed from threats they received from tobacco industry lawyers that showing the interview would amount to “tortious interference”. It’s essentially a film about two industries, big tobacco and broadcast journalism, and the legal nexus between them. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and is one of my favorites. The leadership and legal apparatus of CBS comes across incredibly poorly, temporarily putting profits ahead of the public good.
My déjà vu arose because so much of the dramatic tension in The Insider around contractual duties and whistleblower intimidation emerges in Catch and Kill. Along with Farrow, his boyfriend Jonathan, and his collaborator Rich McHugh, I scratched my head wondering whether NBC leadership had ever seen The Insider, really valued profits over the public good, or were in cahoots with Weinstein. Given their likely knowledge of ongoing sexual assault and coverups among their own staff, most notably lead morning anchor Matt Lauer, it’s possible it was some combination of all of the above. As with CBS’s more than twenty years earlier, NBC’s efforts here to delay and hinder whistleblowing reflect poorly, not just on its business leadership but also its pretenses to journalistic integrity. As with The Insider, this is a tale of two industries: Hollywood and broadcast journalism. But more broadly, it is a tale of modern political and economic power networks and the serious investment of energy and time it takes to expose and defeat them.
Farrow has written a remarkable book. One I couldn’t put down. The core story here is heartbreaking, thrilling, disturbing, frustrating, and revelatory. It’s not just about serial rapists and the powerful network of allies and interests that keep them going but also about living with fear but persisting, nevertheless. It’s full of courage. The courage and bravery of the women in this story, such as Ambra Gutierrez, Mira Sorvino, Brooke Nevils, Rosanna Arquette, and Rose McGowan; the courage of the reporters who doggedly worked to tell their stories, and the organizations that gave them a platform to do so, such as The New Yorker.