Ronan Farrow on Matt Lauer Allegations in Book: I’ll ‘Let the Facts Stand on Their Own’

welcome back to Ronan Farrow on this panel tackling those difficult topics. I really respect him a lot. I think we've all been caught up in this and gotten an advance copy, so thank you for trusting us first. I just want to thank you on behalf. Of all the women in media, you're making it safer for us because it's been open season for us, Bobby and I come from Fox, it's been open season for a long time and I know myself and everyone when I've talked to this industry is really sick of this so I just want to start, you are very brave, it means a lot and the people who are brave in this

book

are the sources and ultimately Whoopi is right, there is a lot of dark stuff in this

book

but It is also again and again.

I hope you found this hopeful story about brave people saying well, we have to do it, we have a lot to do, but let's start with the

allegations

about Matt Lauer. There was a lot of news last week. NBC claims that Lauer was fired in 2017 for citing inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace, but you write in the book that alleged victim Brooke Nevels'

allegations

are much more disturbing. I found them much more disturbing. She says she was raped. What does Nevels say? What happened that night and for me. I keep saying I'm done with Matt Lauer since the way he treated Ann Curry and Ann Curry is incredibly brave in this book and talks about reporting another incident involving another colleague years before that firing, so you know this en It's about more than any one person, any accusation, no

matt

er how serious, it's about how systems of silencing and protection are sometimes enshrined in corporate and legal practices that a company locks people up and maybe that runs the risk of other people getting hurt by Brooke. absolutely true, this was described one way initially and we talked in the book about how people called it an adventure.

There is significant evidence in the book that it was actually actively characterized in the press as an affair at the behest of some people at NBC and as recently as last week they were still saying that this was not a

matt

er of what she now alleges the book it's incredibly carefully verified it's very fair to Matt Lauer Matt Lauer's opinion is there but what she's claiming is that she said no to a very brutal and violent act and she was injured by it and you know it's been used as a weapon in her Contra, like in so many cases of sexual violence, she was in a situation where she was working with this guy and, according to her description, she couldn't escape. from him and there were other encounters that happened afterwards, but she has been clear and said that it is not an affair, but that she was fighting to get out of a toxic situation with someone who had previously attacked her.

Well, let me ask you this because Matt Lauer wrote. a response letter and calls the story categorically false, says that the sexual encounter with Brooke, like all of his relationships, was completely consensual, also says that she was an enthusiastic and willing partner, says that at no time did she behave in a way that made it seem like she was incapable of giving consent, he suggests that she's lying about him in an effort to sell a book and also goes on to say that all of these women he's had affairs with have abandoned shared responsibility. What is his response?

I'll leave that statement

stand

ing. on its own and just to say that, as with everything else I report on Matt Lauer, you were given a very fair opportunity to fact check and comment, and your thinking and many of the ideas you conveyed are in the tall book and Sure, I'm sure. In the book reports, I trust the verification of the pact and will let the

facts

stand

for themselves. Brooke Neville's claims were verified. NBC felt like he had been fact-checked and they fired him for it and I think it represents continued coverage. a culture that we see far beyond NBC that she has been so mischaracterized and she has been so silenced and in fact she was paid seven figures this year to ensure that she can never talk about NBC executives and what they knew or didn't know about this.

They say they didn't know they didn't know about Matt Lauer, this is what they had to say, well you claim that NBC had multiple secret agreements and non-disclosures with women who alleged misconduct by Lauer years before this incident, but NBC put today issued a statement calling this quote false, they say that the agreements it appears to refer to involve employees who made no complaints to management and whose department agreements or exit agreements were unrelated to Lauer and were completely routine, they add that We don't have secrets that we have. nothing to hide mm-hmm do you have proof?

There is evidence and a paper trail in this book and here is the nature of the secret sexual harassment agreements employed by Harvey Weinstein employed by NBC employed by many of the institutions in this book. Don't let them say here there is a payment for you not to talk about Matt Lauer and these specific things that nature did to you is that we know legally yes, it is euphemistic, it is a payment for silence, it prohibits them from talking about the company and what I knew it was designed to protect executives, but we did the reporting and found that almost everyone involved and all of these transactions were saying that this was explicitly designed to silence women with accusations of sexual harassment and here again the risk that exists if companies continue to silence to the people.

Predators stay in companies and more people potentially get hurt too in that email that went out to employees this morning at NBC. I think they would prefer if you didn't talk anymore. Some of these executives say you have an ax to grind against NBC. News that you had a show get canceled there and you're mad at them, how do you respond even a little bit? The book is very clear about the fact that I had friendly relationships with all of these people outside of the Weinstein murder story, which was just very well thought out. of them and the only reason I'm not there now is because it became increasingly clear to me after all this that there was a much bigger story that this was more than just the murder of a story that was a pattern of concealment and source after source came to me to tell me that they had been abused in this corporate context and that there were systems designed to cover it up again.

This is important in our media profession. I made similar reports on CBS and, by the way, similar claims about his axe. to do a smear campaign ahead of time, every story I do, I got this far, shows got canceled at the same time they run, so we can always relate to them, but I think I'd be okay with you knowing that I kept working for years after there clearly isn't that's a surprise, yeah, I think we're done with that, but you know, one of the big questions will always be Merrick for Megan's Queen. You know, there's this conversation where they're trying to focus things, what did he do?

I did it and when and that's my question because they're basically saying that you're reporting that they're refusing to release your report on Harvey Weinstein because his story wasn't ready. They also said he had no accuser willing to have his name used. on the record at the time, but you say you were ordered to stop the investigation, so look at the headline here: I took the same report they're talking about and took it to the New Yorker across the street and a few weeks later it we did. I have this Pulitzer Prize-winning report that, thank God, thanks to the bravery of the sources, really made a big impact.

Yes, I think the report is impeccable and stands on its own. Yes, it is actually an absolute lie to say that there were no women named there. There were three women named during the time the story was on NBC no draft had less than two women and we had police recording of him admitting to crimes so I think the report stands on its own but it's misdirection to make the conversation . About that the conversation is about the fact that they ordered to stop even a single phone call about the story that this book answers why