A former New York Times reporter is speaking out, saying that she had an exclusive on ousted media mogul Harvey Weinstein's lecherous ways, but her story was gutted by the paper's higher-ups.
Sharon Waxman, now the founder and CEO of the Wrap News, wrote Sunday that she felt the need to speak out after reading a column from Times columnist Jim Rutenberg crowing the paper's exclusive on the sexual harassment allegations against the Hollywood producer while lambasting "Harvey Weinstein's media enablers."
In his piece, Rutenberg decried the "pile of positive press clippings" on which Weinstein built his "empire," describing those in the media as enablers. Waxman responded by arguing the Times has been one of those enablers.
"‘Harvey Weinstein's Media Enablers’? The New York Times Is One of Them," Waxman's headline read, claiming that "the paper had a story on [the] mogul's sexual misconduct back in 2004—but gutted it under pressure."
"In 2004, I was still a fairly new reporter at the New York Times when I got the green light to look into oft-repeated allegations of sexual misconduct by Weinstein," Waxman claimed. "It was believed that many occurred in Europe during festivals and other business trips there."
Waxman managed to get several sources to say that the "head of Miramax Italy," Fabrizio Lombardo, was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, despite his sole job being to "take care of Weinstein's women needs." People on the record said the "film executive" knew nothing about film, according to Waxman, who added that Lombardo organized evenings with Russian escorts.
Waxman then tracked down a woman in London who said she received a hush payment after being sexually harassed by Weinstein.
"She was terrified to speak because of her non-disclosure agreement, but at least we had evidence of a pay-off," she wrote. "The story I reported never ran."
Hollywood stars like Matt Damon and Russell Crowe called Waxman personally to defend Lombardo. Eventually, after "unknown discussions well above my head at the Times" and "intense pressure from Weinstein," the sexual aspects of the story were axed. Waxman said she was told at the time that Weinstein himself visited the Times newsroom to make his displeasure known, noting the media mogul was a "major advertiser" in the paper.
"The story was stripped of any reference to sexual favors or coercion and buried on the inside of the Culture section, an obscure story about Miramax firing an Italian executive. Who cared?" Waxman lamented.