Matt Damon, Russell Crowe Reportedly Helped Kill a 2004 New York Times Harvey Weinstein Article

[lapucelle]

"Though the New York Times has been widely celebrated for its article exposing decades of sexual-harassment accusations against Harvey Weinstein, one journalist claims the paper sat on an earlier article detailing the producer’s misconduct. Sharon Waxman, founder of the Wrap, writes that her own investigate reporting, which took her on an international trip to uncover rumors of Weinstein’s sexual misconduct, was cut from the Times in 2004 under pressure from several Hollywood elites."

https://www.thecut.com/2017/10/damon-crowe-reportedly-helped-kill-nyt-weinstein-article.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Cut%2520-%2520October%25209%252C%25202017&utm_term=Subscription%2520List%2520-%2520The%2520Cut%2520%25281%2520Year%2529

[SaschaHM]

1. Which is why I'm kind of side eyeing the corporate media's new "Why aren't Dems saying more stance"

One well written series of articles about Weinstein would have elevated the gossip and rumors and gave them the credibility needed to inspire actual action and put a face on his victims, especially at a time when the US actually gave a damn about the press.

If a NYTimes article in 2017 can result in Harvey's resignation, imagine what one in 2004 could have done.

[lapucelle]

2. Info Wars, The Intercept, and Julian Assange are all tying Weinstein

to the Democrats in general and HRC in particular today. I wonder if CNN et alia are going to call out the New York Times for its part in enabling a powerful sexual predator to continue victimizing women.

Senator Richard Blumenthal has already said that he is donating his portion of the funds to the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence. I hope others follow his example.

http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Blumenthal-to-give-Weinstein-campaign-cash-to-12258524.php

[SaschaHM]

4. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a skeleton in every news organization's closet.

They'd have us believe that no news organization looked into the allegations surrounding Weinstein for 30 years.

I've been hearing about/reading these things for years, but I'm not an investigative journalist with the resources to track down accusers and confirm things.

[karynnj]

6. The question might be that the story in 2004 would have had to mostly rely on gossip and rumors

This sounds more like a journalist saying this was MY story. From her perspective the New York Times gutted her story. Yet reading what she said on Lombardo, it may not have reached the level the NYT wanted as truth then. She also speaks of ONE person, afraid to speak, who had a non disclosure payment. This is FAR less than what the current story had. I admit that I have never heard of or remember reading anything from this journalist.

Read critically her update -- likely to questions asked of her as why she did not cover it on The Wrap, where she could not have been stopped.

Update: Several have asked why I did not pursue the story once I started TheWrap. Fair question. Five years later, 2009, the moment had passed to go back and write the missing piece about Lombardo, who was no longer on the scene and whose story had been half-published in the Times. Miramax was no longer part of the Walt Disney Company. And I did not have sufficient evidence to write about a pay-off, even though I knew one existed. My focus was on raising money, building a website and starting a media company. In the subsequent years since then I did not hear about further pay-offs or harrassment and thought the issue was in the past. Weinstein had made a big effort, supposedly, to curb his temper and behavior, which was reflected in other areas of his public life.

https://www.thewrap.com/media-enablers-harvey-weinstein-new-york-times/


Reading between the lines - she did not have the level of proof where she would risk thewrap's reputation. She writes that of Lombardo. However, the question is Weinstein, who see did not expose either. My guess, there was the same problem - she did not have sufficient proof - which might be the REAL reason the NYT "gutted" it.

What would be fair to argue is that in 2004, the NYT did not think it was important enough to put more effort into establishing this story. (Me, my biggest complaint in 2004 was NOT this, but that they had a woman who gave Bush and his campaign largely positive friendly coverage where their coverage of Kerry was snarky and treated him with suspicion.)

[Skittles]

3. those would be his enablers

[bettyellen]

5. Damon is the worst.

[grantcart]

10. Why is he the worst?

[bettyellen]

12. He was such a jerk on that Project Greenlight show .

They tried to set up drama by pairing the whitest sheltered young man directing w a black female producer. Of course the only black person they wanted to cast was a servant. Damon said you get to diversity by keeping it in front of the camera- when defending a bunch of dudes trying to write embarrassing nonsense scripe about a black hooker. He was an idiot throughout the whole thing. What a train wreck

[hunter]

13. My mom could write an escape from Hollywood book...

... but she's still working on the escape from religion books.

She recently told me she got her first serious job in Hollywood because she had nice legs. She'd thought it was her mad shorthand and typing skills. Before knobby fingered arthritis, which I've inherited, my mom could type faster than most people speak. In modern times she'd have been a wizard of live closed-captioning, but she did better then as a script supervisor for a famous guy.

I washed out of Hollywood as a kindergartner. My grandma did her best to make me a child star. I've been told I'd stare, in a very unnerving way, at Very Important People as if they were interesting insects. Cockroaches scurrying across the floor. Truth was they were not as interesting to me as actual invertebrates. Years later I abandoned a potentially lucrative television engineering career to became a biology major and science teacher

My sister is still in the industry but bad men have always been scared of her. She's also a jock who was on the back bench of an U.S. Olympic team. She's still kicking ass in Hollywood whenever she visits, crushing a few balls along the way, just as her grandma and great aunt and great grandma did.

My grandma and her sister were bad girls in the 'twenties and 'thirties, run away to Hollywood. Their wild west mom later moved to Santa Monica and would threaten any bad men her daughters brought home with death. Literally. I can't be certain she didn't kill a few, then to call her friend the sheriff to clean up the mess and file the proper paperwork. All four of my great grandmas were like that. I knew three. My rocket-man autistic spectrum grandpa was no prize as a husband and he and his mother-in-law would frequently go at it, knives drawn, kids present or not, but I suppose he survived because he loved my grandma very much and she loved him.

My wife and I are both of fiercely matriarchal families, Wild American West, emphasis on the wild.

[fierywoman]

7. Weinstein was way more powerful in 2004, I think.

[dlk]

8. The Good Old Boys Stick Together

Not surprising.

[lapucelle]

9. I fully expect the press to absolve itself from any responsibility,

as they point fingers elsewhere.

[kwassa]

11. Sharon Waxman is a very good reporter.

I used to read her in the WaPo all the time. I worked in the film industry, and she knew her stuff.