How @nytimes reporters Megan Twohey (@mega2e) and @jodikantor broke Hollywood’s biggest sexual harassment story https://t.co/5MZC2oWjjT #HollywoodUncovered pic.twitter.com/4fddUQLAbQ— Variety (@Variety) December 13, 2017
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Did you have any idea that the Weinstein reporting would open the floodgates on other stories of powerful media figures engaging in sexual abuse?
Kantor: It’s counterintuitive. One of our editors said to us, “You know he’s not that famous.” It was true, because Weinstein was Hollywood famous, but he wasn’t a household name. One of our editors, Matt Purdy, has an interesting theory, which is that this was the rare situation in which the accusers were more famous than the accused.
I’m of two minds about the potency of fame in making this story impactful. On one hand, I kind of resist and resent it, because I believe every woman’s story counts. Harvey Weinstein appears to have done the same thing to a lot of women regardless of their stature in the industry. As a journalist and as a human being, I don’t like the idea of weighting the more famous women’s stories more heavily than the lesser-known women’s stories. That said, I have to concede that the impact of big stars like Ashley Judd, Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow going on the record was enormous, in part because they were saying it’s not shameful to tell your story. I ask myself would it have played out the same way if the really famous women had not come forward? I’m not sure it would have.
