The mainstream media has largely celebrated its role in toppling Harvey Weinstein, and in providing a platform for the #MeToo movement. Ronan Farrow, whose reporting on the Harvey Weinstein earned him a Pulitzer Prize, has called out the media for the self-laudatory behavior.
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During a speech at the graduation ceremony for Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Farrow—the son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen—discussed the obstacles he faced, obstacles from within an industry that has since celebrated his accomplishments.
Farrow spoke in vague, shadowy terms about the obstacles he faced during his work on the Weinstein story. It's not exactly clear whether or not he's referencing people within the news media, although it's a safe presumption. He depicts a life guided by fear, fear of powerful people within the media who sought to intimidate and even harm him.
Farrow's latest piece exposed New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who, as a card-carrying liberal Democrat and #MeToo advocate, has used his role as Attorney General to prosecute Harvey Weinstein.
In short, he's actually doing real journalism. And all too often, proper journalism makes the mainstream media furious.
In fact, Schneiderman praised Farrow and the New Yorker for their Pulitzer Prize-winning work on the Weinstein story. Like the workers within the mainstream media who sought to derail Farrow's devastating exposé, Schneiderman—if the allegations are in fact true—has been revealed as a hypocrite, whose grandstanding was a diversionary tactic.
Of course, as always, the context is important. And Farrow's speech built to a rousing end. He offered a way out of the current cultural struggle we face as a nation. He worded it universally so that he was addressing each of us. Agree with Farrow's politics or not, he has striven to expose the wrongdoing of powerful people.
In short, he's actually doing real journalism. And all too often, proper journalism makes the mainstream media furious.