Ronan Farrow has defended himself after Matt Lauer wrote a scathing column accusing him of ‘shoddy journalism’.
Farrow said the disgraced Today show host – who was accused of rape in his book Catch and Kill – is ‘just wrong’ in his assessment.
‘Catch and Kill was thoroughly reported and fact-checked, including with Matt Lauer himself,’ Farrow wrote on Twitter.
Meanwhile Brooke Nevils, the woman who detailed her accusations of rape against Lauer to Farrow, also took to Twitter to defend herself.
Ronan Farrow (left) has defended himself against allegations of ‘shoddy journalism’ by Matt Lauer (right), who was accused of raping a former colleague in his book
Farrow said Lauer was ‘just wrong’ in his assessment of the book, and that it was thoroughly reported and fact-checked
‘DARVO’, she wrote – using an acronym for the behavior of abusers when they are accused – which means ‘deny, attack, reverse victim and offender.’
Lauer was abruptly sacked by NBC in 2017 after a then-unnamed accuser came forward to detail what the network described at the time as ‘sexual misconduct’.
As he departed, Lauer admitted feeling ‘shame’ over an inappropriate relationship he had with a colleague while reporting on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
But in 2019, ahead of the publication of Farrow’s book, Nevils unmasked herself and went further – alleging that Lauer raped her in a hotel room.
Lauer has vehemently denied that any non-consensual acts took place.
In a column for Mediaite, Lauer wrote: ‘From start to finish Ronan is acting as Brooke’s advocate, not as a journalist investigating her claims.’
He alleges that Farrow broke ‘the cardinal rule of journalism’ by ‘coming to a self-serving conclusion first, and then he sees everything through the prism of that assumption’.
In support of his claim, Lauer details what he claims are instances where Farrow failed to carry out basic fact-checking on his work.
Brooke Nevils, Lauer’s accuser, tweeted out an acronym that is commonly used to describe the behavior of abusers when confronted
Lauer was abruptly fired by NBC News for sexual misconduct in 2017 after Brooke Nevils, pictured, accused him of rape in a Sochi hotel room during the Olympics in 2014
At one point in the book, Farrow gives the account of a source who said Lauer attacked a woman in his office, that she passed out, and that his assistant took her to see a nurse.
‘Had he called my assistant, she would have told him that she never took anyone to the nurse, who had any kind of medical issue, while in my office. Ever,’ Lauer said.
Lauer also recalls a passage of Farrow’s book in which he claims that Nevils told a superior about the alleged attack in Sochi after starting a new job at NBC.
‘Did he include a quote or a comment from that superior?’ Lauer asks, ‘Did he find out if that superior had, in fact, been told about the “seriousness” of what Brooke now claims?
‘No, he did not.’
Lauer himself claims to have tracked down that superior, and to have been told through an intermediary that Nevils described a consensual affair – not a rape.
He also claims the superior said that Farrow had never reached out to her.
Lauer released his column the day after a New York Times piece was published, going to great lengths to detail the shortcomings of Farrow’s reporting for the New Yorker – which he joined after working alongside Lauer at NBC.
Farrow claims NBC tried to suppress his reporting on sex scandals around powerful men, including Harvey Weinstein, in part because they knew of Lauer’s own wrongdoing.
While the New York Times concedes that Farrow does not ‘make stuff up’, the column says the 32-year-old’s reporting ‘can be misleading’.
‘[Farrow] delivers narratives that are irresistibly cinematic — with unmistakable heroes and villains — and often omits the complicating facts and inconvenient details that may make them less dramatic,’ the article says.
‘At times, he does not always follow the typical journalistic imperatives of corroboration and rigorous disclosure, or he suggests conspiracies that are tantalizing but he cannot prove.’
Farrow’s reporting for the New Yorker helped spark the #MeToo movement and earned the publication a joint-Pulitzer Prize in 2018 along with the New York Times.
It also led to the toppling of several powerful men accused of serious sexual assault, including Weinstein who was jailed for rape earlier this year.
Source: Daily Mail – Articles
