Jodi kantor and megan discussed the need to movement in their investigation of Sexual Harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein. They were interviewed and hosted by politics to washington d. C. Good evening, everybody. On behalf of everybody, thank you very much for coming. Enjoy joining forces upon author events at this cultural center, 15 years old and it founder and staff deserve a lot of credit. [applause] its a vibrant community today. Jodi kantor and megan tooley. [cheering] they revealed to the world Harvey Weinsteins reviews. There book is the reviewing account of how they developed their blockbuster story. The me too movement. As i note in the wake of the weinstein expose which broke in october 2017, it wasnt as if allah had come down. Women not just in this country but around the world to tell their own stories of mistreatment. In addition to the pivotal impact their reporting is have, they went about confirming a story at others before them had tried to now but by a terrific case study, it goes into investigative journalism. People often think it just falls into the laps of the reporters. In reality, whats involved is a lot of painstaking reporting for all sorts of leads, running into dead ends, coaxing details on of reluctant sources. Substantiating information, dealing with skeptical new patient editors, all while enduring intense efforts by the subjects of the investigation to even threaten. This example of tough journalism and the effect this kind of reporting can have stands as a powerful counterargument to skepticism about news media today. Jodi and megan brought to their past years of experience. She joined the times 15 years ago, spent time as a reporter and work a book about barack and Michelle Obama that came out in 2012. Recently, her work is focused on the treatment of women. Megan concentrated on the treatment of women and children. 2014, a reporter, she is a investigative reporting exposing an underground network that gave away adopted children they no longer wanted to strangers they met on the internet. Megan and jodis work on the weinstein story led to the New York Times along with the new yorker, Public Service last year. [cheering] [applause] their review remarked that the book reads a bit like a femini feminist. [laughter] is particularly fitting that they will be in conversation this evening with bob woodward. [cheering and applauding] hes been observing and reporting Major Development for nearly half a century. He shared into surprises, first uncovering the larger scandal, the second 2003, coverage of the 9 11 terrorist attacks. He hardly begins to reflect his enormous journalistic legacy. Fear is devastating the trump presidency, came out last year and it was his 19th book, all caps on National Bestsellers and i wouldnt bet against another one coming out in the nottoodistant future. [laughter] joined me in welcoming megan twohey and bob woodward and jodi kantor. [cheering and applauding] thank you, its great to be here. Lets get right to it. First of all, this book is a massive piece. A landmark. [applause] journalism and people who were not journalists, its about how you sort out information, publish and share with others. I loved it, i have my copy here. The first question is, what was the origin of the collaboration between you two . We would like to start by thanking everybody, this is the launch of our book tour. [cheering and applauding] we are grateful we have not only friends and family but also the sources in the audience tonight. We want to thank them for being here, too. I think when it comes to question and answers, there may be people if they want to get up and identify themselves. Thats a good question. The truth is, in 2017, the New York Times decided it wanted to diving reporting on Sexual Harassment. So the weinstein story, the investigation was one of many reporting projects that started that year, Silicon Valley and Restaurant Industry and auto plants in chicago and we were really moved by the work of our colleagues, emily and mike schmidt had done something remarkable earlier that year. They had broken the bill oreilly story and they paid out millions of dollars to silence women who came forward with allegations of Sexual Misconduct against him. Lets pretend its a movie. Is it in the newsroom of the New York Times where you kind of, did you know each other . Megan was very new at the paper and i saw this woman like in 2016, who i could tell was very submitted book because she was doing these difficult trump stories and as the stories were difficult, this was what was happening and i had two kids at the time and i knew what she was doing was not easy. But we didnt know each other well. We had only met a couple of times. Megan was on Maternity Leave in the spring of 2017 when i started working on the weinstein story. As part of this question of the editors asked, are there other powerful men in American Life who have perhaps abused women and covered it up . I was trying very hard to get people on the phone and engage them. Getting these actresses phone numbers was like an investigation in itself. Then theres the question of what you have them on the phone, what you actually do to earn the trust . And at first 40s five seconds that you know. I called megan for advice and she was in full on Maternity Leave. She had just set the baby down for a nap. She was telling me about the reporting she had done on allegations of women against donald trump. Stressing the argument she often think to them was look, i cant change what happened to you in the past but together, if we work arm in arm, we may be able to take your pain and put it up for constructive process. This was the standard line to use. The outreach line. Right. This is the first real conversation jodi and i had while on Maternity Leave. I had been reporting on sex crimes. It was something i found, what reasons does a woman have to open up about this . When did you know you were a team or even when did the editors think of you that way . Rebecca corbin, might editor told me to call megan. I didnt think that much of it but now i realized she sort of understands the newsroom and i understand she was feeling out a potential you are kind of tricked into it . When megan said that on the phone, something in me changed. I did not want to get off the phone with her. I wanted to have the same sources but megan still had another couple of weeks of Maternity Leave and she had twice in terms of what she was going to cover when she came back. On the weinstein investigation, i had to take a day to think about it. [laughter] have been covering trump until having this baby and i watched the fourth month as i saw investigative work and not have an impact. So this is a real question, whether or not, youre not just right interesting stories, you want stories that have an impact. And weinstein, lots of people havent heard that. We look i myself you made him famous. I myself had doubts. I wondered, jodi started to talk to me about some of the allegations she heard, i had a hard time conceiving of these famous actresses as victims and to start to comprehend, giving voice to the voiceless. I had a hard time wrapping my head around hollywood but jodi said fact that this is happened, suggest that no one is immune and if we can cracks these stories, we might be able to make a difference. When was the first real breakthrough . Your book you got the chronology and so many characters and so forth, in the moment where you set off, this is different, this is something . Three really prominent actresses, ashley judd, not in communication with one another, totally separately, they tell us these terrible weinstein storie they were not on the record . So far from the record. Far off the record. It put us in a bad position because it immediately created this on the one hand, while, these are high valued sources and their stories are very convincing and their stories match. On the other hand, none of them are ready to go on the record. So what do we do . What do you do do . We realized the story would have to be with evidence and not just we have this theory that maybe we can persuade actresses to hold hands and time together and their safeties in numbers but because of the actresses who we were talking to, its very hard to get them to do that. Also, it created what the traditional he said she said dynamic with a story would have sparked a debate. So what about went into making this difference . We realized right away we would need records and evidence that went beyond these accounts we were hearing. This is one of the ways in which we turn in allie and mike, they had done something remarkable there. They basically helped teach us how to try to track down these secret settlements that have been paid. The key here is settlements . Some sort of agreement to be signed. There were women who were reluctant to tell us their experiences with weinstein. There were also women, at least eight who were legally prohibited from telling us what happened because weinstein forced secret settlements on them. This was not the case up weinstein but in cases of Sexual Harassment and assault across the country. Women are often told their best option is to accept money in exchange for silence but what you think about . It seems your big breakthrough is mccullen where she had 100,000 settlement. That was concrete. Weinstein or the company had paid her. Right . We were basically able, in the course of our reporting to chuck that we were able to trace the financial trail of payoffs made. These secret settlements used to basically hide the truth to allow people to cover their tracks, we realized we could basically unearth the fact that these settlements had been paid, that would be evidence in itself. We were able to track down settlements that stretched from 1990 to 2015 and there were varieties of ways to document that. I was just one of many. Among the wonderful lines in the book, you say knowing about documents is good, having seen documents is excellent. But actually having copies is a celebration. You know that one. [laughter] when was the first time i actually got or saw documents that showed women had been paid off to be quite . I go to london at summer to meet with a former assistant who had a settlement. Megan is basically emoji texting me as i leave for the plane. Shes like, youre going to see the papers. So shes a culture . Well i mean even in the scenes in the book words really one of us, something we are both really there because we are preparing beforehand, strategizing, etc. So when we laid eyes on these papers, it was so shocking. They went beyond standard settlement agreement. These very young women were easily overpowered if they were essentially prohibited from talking about their own life experiences. If they wanted to tell a therapist, they needed special permission. They wanted to talk to an accountant, they need to special permission. One of these women could not tell her future husband about what happened to her. The women were not even allowed to retain copies of these settlement papers, he casually put them together but imagine being told have to abide by an agreement, that you cannot even have your own copy of. Or you break that . Very brave because from the beginning, she was thinking of just breaking her settlement which is a courageous thing to do because it exposed her to potential liability. I felt i couldnt push her into that because it wasnt a big risk and remember that we act now like me to was inevitable but it was not or deemed idle, any of this played out the way it did. Without it may publish a controversial story and they might be vulnerable so what we basically said is, even if you cant go on the record, there are so many other people who know about this settlement. There other people who know youve disappeared, no you got money. There are lawyers, lots of people we can talk to. What if we just write about this in the document everything we can that happened and you dont go on the record . Thats what she agreed to. Did you ever use the argument if youre silent, youre enabling . I think the truth is that for women who have experienced Sexual Harassment and assault, theyve already undergone so much pain in their life that we are not trying to bully anyone into doing, we know coming forward, we dont think thats an effective strategy and we dont think its the right thing to do. Its worth noting the women [applause] that there are women who have entered these settlement who still have not gone on the record, they are still terrified. Its one thing to ask a source to speak about something painful from the past but its another thing to ask to break something in which a legally binding document in which weinstein can come after them for serious money. Dont think they are liberated from . Weinstein is preparing to go on trial for criminal charges. So hes got other issues right now. They are seeking financial compensation hasnt gone after everybody but they would be mistaken. You say they are women who have charges against weinstein, how many of those are public now and how many of them are off the record or the next volume . I believe there are women including a few we read about in the book who have not come forward about weinstein. But the key thing to remember, especially as this trial comes up, the accusations vary. Some of them are accusations of rape and assault, assault within the purview of the criminal Justice System or should a lot of them are charged with Sexual Harassment. Thats illegal but its a civil violation. This restitution for that is lawsuit. You can sue for that but they cant be rested. As part of the question whether they will have any accountability at all. The criminal trial is a big . And a combined civil lawsuit is also a big question. This is an important question. You two are experts on interviewing and going down explaining peoples experience and all of your work, did you find anyone who made up allegations . s in the course of our reporting in weinstein, we have not come across any fabricated allegations but thats very important. Writes. The tweet said to donald trump. [laughter] our book starts with the reporting i did on trump in 2016 and the many men who came forward with allegations against him. While we hadnt come across fabricated allegations, we include in the book some of the instances in which we didnt report allegations because not because we didnt believe but because we hadnt been able to obtain cooperation. Theres one foreman, a former beauty pageant contestant who told me a story about being sexually harassed and groped by donald trump when she was in the pageant and provided, steered me toward potential cooperation that didnt materialize. I didnt mean i didnt believe her but it meant we go to pain staking details to describe all the Due Diligence do to move forward with publishing on strike. Talk about rebecca hartman, roll up the sleeves editor because an article is seen in the book where he takes you to a quiet barr and tell us what she said to year. This is the summer of 2017, we been reporting for weeks and weeks and we know so many things. Weve spoken to several actresses were convincing. Don cooperation of the accounts. We know about a whole bunch of settlement. Employees have said this was a terrible problem. I had some knowledge of it at the time. So if you are feeling good . We are feeling nervous. What she have to say . We were nervous because we had this feeling of response ability and we want to know if we can plant this story. She listens to everything we have and she says, is any on the record . We said no. She said you do not have a publishable story. How did you feel . We felt devastated. It was one of the more memorable moments. One of the ones we worked so hard author so much that goes on. Theres a lot of trauma on the stories and also drama behind the scenes. We will grateful to finally be able to show readers what its like not just working with sources but also in the newsroom. We dont have a story. Was the strategy for getting out of the hole . Saying not publishable and as we all know in the news business, thats what counts. That is the job. So how do you navigate out . We kept calling Weinstein Company employees and finally got a hold of the sky and talk about him. He was very important. One thank you never know in journalism, who will end up helping and who isnt. Its almost impossible and theres a lot of surprises in this for those who helped reveal and conceal. He has essentially been harvey Weinstein Company accounted for 30 years. Hes done the books on all of these famous movies weve seen. Is a relatively unassuming guy. He short, in his late 50s. He has been outer exit. He describes to me as kind of a graph loyalist. I thought he was unlikely to help but finally, somebody said to me, he hates Harvey Weinstein. [laughter] that was our opening. Did you tell it to rebecca . Yes. I called the sky doesnt also make you nervous . [laughter] im sorry. Well, heres what i was nervous about. I was worried he could be a spy. As you know, to get information, you have to give at least a Little Information, at least in terms of what you are writing about. I worried he was a set up, we now know a lot about what highbury weinstein was doing but megan and i are imagining it. One thing he could have done this position the Company Insider to play a source and be a spy. Or even worse, keep information in the story which wouldve been the most devastating thing of all. So he gets off the phone quickly and gets me his email address and we start corresponding and even the fact that hes writing back and we are gathering over emails and he said he would take the weekend to decide so this is the book but we kept emailing and since we are in a synagogue, maybe i should say irwin is the brainchild and it turns out we grew up in the same places in our families even spent summers in the same bungalow colonies. [laughter] does anybody know the word klansman . We were cantering over the weekend and im waiting to see if hes willing to meet in person so low and behold, he says hes willing to meet and