NBC News president claims Ronan Farrow is trying to 'defame' the network because he has an 'axe to grind'
NBC News' war with Ronan Farrow just keeps escalating.
Farrow's new book Catch and Kill hits stores Tuesday after a week of excerpts revealing some of the most damning allegations against the network, including that it paid settlements to Matt Lauer accusers years before his firing and that Harvey Weinstein may have pressured it to kill Farrow's investigation into his alleged sexual abuse using dirt about Lauer. Farrow's investigation into Weinstein was originally intended for NBC News, but he ultimately had to take it to The New Yorker.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"Farrow's effort to defame NBC News is clearly motivated not by a pursuit of truth, but an axe to grind," Oppenheim writes in the email, per journalist Yashar Ali. "It is built on a series of distortions, confused timelines, and outright inaccuracies."
Oppenheim refutes Farrow's reporting that settlements were made to Lauer accusers before his 2017 firing, writing "there is no evidence of any reports of Lauer's misconduct before his firing, no settlements, no 'hush money' — no way we have found that NBC's current leadership could have been aware of his misdeeds in the past." He also refers to the suggestion that Farrow's Weinstein report may have been killed because Weinstein had dirt on Lauer as a "conspiracy theory."
"We have no secrets and nothing to hide," Oppenheim writes.
Farrow has continued to stand by his reporting amid criticism from NBC, telling Good Morning America on Friday it's "indisputable based on the evidence in this book that there was a chain of secret settlements at this company that were covered up ... this was a pattern."
-
Did Alex Pretti’s killing open a GOP rift on guns?Talking Points Second Amendment groups push back on the White House narrative
-
The 8 best hospital dramas of all timethe week recommends From wartime period pieces to of-the-moment procedurals, audiences never tire of watching doctors and nurses do their lifesaving thing
-
‘Implementing strengthened provisions help advance aviation safety’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Fed holds rates steady, bucking Trump pressureSpeed Read The Federal Reserve voted to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged
-
Judge slams ICE violations amid growing backlashSpeed Read ‘ICE is not a law unto itself,’ said a federal judge after the agency violated at least 96 court orders
-
Rep. Ilhan Omar attacked with unknown liquidSpeed Read This ‘small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work’
-
Democrats pledge Noem impeachment if not firedSpeed Read Trump is publicly defending the Homeland Security secretary
-
The billionaires’ wealth tax: a catastrophe for California?Talking Point Peter Thiel and Larry Page preparing to change state residency
-
Hegseth moves to demote Sen. Kelly over videospeed read Retired Navy fighter pilot Mark Kelly appeared in a video reminding military service members that they can ‘refuse illegal orders’
-
Trump says US ‘in charge’ of Venezuela after Maduro grabSpeed Read The American president claims the US will ‘run’ Venezuela for an unspecified amount of time, contradicting a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio
-
Bari Weiss’ ‘60 Minutes’ scandal is about more than one reportIN THE SPOTLIGHT By blocking an approved segment on a controversial prison holding US deportees in El Salvador, the editor-in-chief of CBS News has become the main story
