Ronan On The Rampage

A year-and-a-half ago I went to a taping of the Stephen Colbert show which I blogged about here. What I realize now is that I forgot to mention that muck racking reporter Ronan Farrow was also a guest on that particular show -- talking about how ex-movie mogul Harvey Weinstein had sicced former Mossad agents on Farrow in an attempt to stop his reporting on Weinstein's bad behavior.

Now Ronan Farrow has written a book called Catch and Kill about his reporting on Weinstein and also on former Today show host Matt Lauer -- and the whole sleazy cabal of lawyers, executives, PR flaks, and others who tried to suppress stories about the misbehavior of these famous and powerful men (they eventually, obviously, failed). 

Farrow documents stories of threatening phone calls, attempts to bribe reporters and others with book and movie deals, secretive pay-offs and non-disclosure agreements, bad-faith arguments about how stories weren't "ready" for publication when in reality they were being suppressed to keep people happy and in their jobs, and lots more. What Farrow's reporting -- and the whole wave of reports about the bad private behavior of prominent men in the last couple of years -- is that now we're seeing what goes on behind the scenes with the rich and powerful -- behind closed doors, late at night, on the phone or in emails and texts, when other people who might be able to stop it aren't around or are ignorant of what is going on around them, just out of sight and mind. Farrow and his fellow reporters are shining a light not only on bad -- sometimes criminal -- behavior, but also on the dark chasm that exists between men and women, the powerful and the powerless, the abusers and the abused, the rumors and whispers that float in the air, unproven and unconfirmed -- until now.

They're showing us the grime and dirt beneath the shiny surfaces -- the ultimate, ugliest of reality shows.

I'll be honest -- I'm not a huge fan of Ronan Farrow personally. During his Colbert appearance I found him impossibly smug and arrogant (I guess winning a Pulitzer Prize will do that to you) and I dislike this personal jihad he has against Woody Allen, his maybe father. That said, his reporting on this subject of institutionalized abuse is important and, if it has any value beyond pure gossip, is that hopefully it will make men in power change their behavior for the better -- if only so that they don't become future subject for reporters like Ronan Farrow, future victims of his rampages.