After the New York Times's Harvey Weinstein exposé last week, reports are emerging of media suppression of stories about his sexual misbehavior over the years. Notable among the accounts is one by Hollywood reporter Sharon Waxman, above. She writes that back in 2004, when she worked for the New York Times, it sanitized and buried her story about the head of Miramax Italy, whose "real job" was to take care of Weinstein's "women needs, among other things." She writes: "After intense pressure from Weinstein, which included having Matt Damon and Russell Crowe call me directly to vouch for Lombardo and unknown discussions well above my head at the Times, the story was gutted." She said the Times culture editor at the time, Jon Landman, now a Bloomberg editor, thought the story unimportant because “he's not a publicly elected official.”
From The Wrap:
I was devastated after traveling to two countries and overcoming immense challenges to confirm at least part of the [New York Times] story that wound up running last week, more than a decade later. I had met in person with a woman who said she'd been paid off for an unwanted sexual encounter and thus proved she existed.
Today I wonder: If this story had come to light at the time, would Weinstein have continued his behavior for another decade, evidenced by the scathing 2015 memo by former staffer Lauren O'Connor unearthed by Kantor and Twohey.
Writes [Times media columnist Jim] Rutenberg: “Mr. Weinstein had his own enablers. He built his empire on a pile of positive press clippings that, before the internet era, could have reached the moon.”
The New York Times was one of those enablers.
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