Claire Conger

Maybe not. With Ronan Farrow’s book Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, the phrase “catch and kill” takes on a whole new meaning.

I anticipated Mr. Farrow’s work to be about paying bunnies for exclusive rights to their stories of trysts with public figures, then not running the story, that is, a book about David Pecker, the National Enquirer, and American Media Inc. But Mr. Farrow describes a very different twist to the catch-the-story-then-kill-it gambit. His bosses at NBC, Noah Oppenheim and Richard Greenberg in particular—friends of Harvey!—strung him along as he investigated Harvey Weinstein, the lure being for Mr. Farrow to be rewarded for his effort, keep his job, and report on the air.

But Mr. Oppenheim wanted the story out of his hair so badly that he suggested Mr. Farrow take it to New York magazine, and Mr. Weinstein wanted the story killed so badly that he hired Black Cube to intimidate—and trick!—everyone involved.

It was David Remnick of The New Yorker who championed the story and it was Mr. Farrow’s sister Dylan Farrow who told him he’d better the hell not give up.