“NBC has informed us, in writing, that it is no longer working on any story about or relating to TWC [The Weinstein Company], including its employees and executives, and all such activities have been terminated.”

There it is, I thought. A news organization, agreeing to withhold the news.

In a statement to Vanity Fair, NBC calls the letter a “massive mischaracterization,” and portrays Oppenheim as standing up to Weinstein’s representatives. But the same week Harder sent that letter, Ronan has now revealed in Catch and Kill, Weinstein and Oppenheim shared a friendly email exchange. Weinstein, noting that they were on “opposite sides” of the fence, congratulated him on the launch of Megyn Kelly’s show. He also sent Oppenheim a bottle of Grey Goose.

“Thanks, Harvey,” Oppenheim responded, “appreciate the well-wishes!”

Two days later, I was informed that my AmFAR story had been killed.

In the past few days, faced with mounting outrage over their repeated lies about the Weinstein story and Lauer’s misconduct, Lack and Oppenheim have once again resorted to attacking me and Ronan. In a statement to NBC staff, Lack accused Ronan of painting a “fundamentally untrue picture” in Catch and Kill. Oppenheim told the Times that the book “willfully distorts” his exchanges with Ronan. And both continue to insist, over and over, that we did not have enough reporting to air the story—without ever explaining why they didn’t simply order us to keep pursuing what was clearly a promising and newsworthy investigation.

My last exchange with the network brass came in May 2018, when staffers in the investigative unit were summoned to a conference room for another meeting with Oppenheim. This time, he was accompanied by NBCUniversal’s general counsel, Kimberley Harris, who reported on the company’s internal investigation into the allegations against Lauer. She defended the decision to keep the review internal, rather than hiring an outside counsel, and insisted that NBC’s investigation of itself was “objective”—a claim as ridiculous as it was sickening.

One of my colleagues pointed out that NBC’s decision to avoid an independent review made it harder for us, as journalists, to do our jobs. “It feels like having an outside voice, whether they came to the same conclusions or not, would make it go away quicker,” my colleague said. “What’s happened is we’ve just sort of elongated the process. It’s so frustrating.”

Harris cut her off. “If the press would stop covering it,” she said, “it will go away.”

Another colleague spoke up. “But we are the press!”

“Oh,” said Harris, “I’m well aware.”

Did she honestly just say that? I thought to myself. This company doesn’t want to get to the bottom of anything. They just want it to go away.

Another thought occurred to me. I raised my hand. “Has NBC ever paid an employee who presented information on Matt to sign a nondisclosure agreement?” I asked.

Harris had been answering questions with long-winded and evasive answers, couched in legalese. But not now. She paused for a beat, looked at me, and said, “No.”

That doesn’t appear to have been an outright lie—but it was deeply misleading. We now know that as early as 2012, the network offered settlements to multiple women after they told colleagues they had been sexually harassed by Lauer. And the money was paid only after the women agreed to sign non-disclosure agreements. The network had protected itself and Matt Lauer with precisely the same legal tactics that Weinstein had used for years to cover up his sexual misconduct.

That August, I left NBC for a job as an executive producer for Al Gore’s 24 Hours of Reality, a global broadcast focused on climate change. I decided it would be fitting to resign one year to the day that I had been ordered to stand down on the Weinstein story. I wrapped a final shoot in San Francisco, flew back to New York City, and cleaned out my desk.

I left all of the interviews that Ronan and I had done during our Weinstein investigation in an unlocked drawer, for anyone to read or watch, should they too have a need to look for the truth.

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