MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow openly confronted the leadership of her own network in a monologue on Friday night. While speaking about author Ronan Farrow’s reporting of the sexual assault allegations againt movie producer Harvey Weinstein, she made it clear she had concerns about NBC‘s role in the investigation. Maddow questioned why her network had not hired an independent investigator to look into the claims against Weinstein or former Today show host Matt Lauer.
Rachel Maddow pulls no punches expressing her feelings on revelations disclosed in Ronan Farrow’s new book “Catch and Kill”. Kudos to her!
— Luca (@atomicflip) October 26, 2019
.#msnbc #rachelmaddow #metoo #harveyweinstein #billybush #coercion #abuse #coverup #ronanfarrow #news #opinion pic.twitter.com/DGveAqYbWn
“I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs in this company since I’ve been here,” Maddow said. “It would be impossible for me to overstate the amount of consternation inside the building around this issue.”
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“The allegations about the behavior of Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer are gut-wrenching,” she continued. “But accusations that people in positions of authority in this building may have been complicit in some way in shielding those guys from accountability — those accusations are very, very hard to stomach.”
“As far as we can tell, there has never been an independent investigation of that,” Maddow said. “So until there is an independent investigation — if there’s ever going to be one — that remains NBC’s word versus Ronan Farrow’s reporting and assertions.”
Maddow’s assertions against NBC comes on the heels of her fellow MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes vocalizing his support of Farrow last week. Hayes said Farrow’s work is “the kind of journalism that you want to do as a journalist, that everyone who works in this business should want to facilitate.”
“One thing is indisputable,” Hayes continued. “Ronan Farrow walked out of NBC News while working on the Weinstein story and, within two months, published an incredible article at The New Yorker that not only won a Pulitzer, but helped trigger a massive social and cultural reckoning that continues to this day.”
Farrow was a guest on Maddow’s show Friday night and told her, “People speaking truth to power about their own bosses, about their own institutions, is a really important part of how we can have an honest conversation about this.”
Farrow’s explosive 2017 book Catch and Kill and his reporting for The New Yorker exposed sexual abuse at the highest levels of media companies and gave rise to the Me Too movement.
