CNN anchors Kate Bolduan and John Berman called out New York Times journalists Monday who wrote a piece about Donald Trump's private behavior with women on the accusation that they did not accurately quote a principal subject.
The journalists, Michael Barbaro and Megan Twohey, appeared on At This Hour to respond to accusations from a woman featured in the article, Rowanne Brewer, who said the journalists did not accurately portray what she had told them about her time with Trump.
"You did use the word, ‘debase,’ you know, in the piece, again, right up close to where that anecdote is. Is that a word that Rowanne used or is that a word that the women you spoke to used?" Berman asked.
"I mean, the description from Rowanne was one of many voices that we included in the story and we really valued the fact that, and as you'll see, like, I think, one of the things readers noted with our story was that we kind of changed the format a little bit," Twohey said. "We wanted to have this be an opportunity to hear these women in their own words as much as possible, and so that's why you had large chunks of excerpts from our interviews and so, you know, we thought that that was a really powerful way to kind of capture the experiences of a variety of women inside and outside the workplace."
"Guys, she very clearly uses the words, it was ‘misleading,’ you took her words out of context, you didn't fully quote her, is what she suggests," Bolduan said. "You know, she said she called something flattering right after one of these anecdotes. As a journalist, that's concerning. What do you guys think happened?"
"You know, when I interviewed Rowanne, she was very clearly, she uses the word ‘taken aback’ at one point about that example. I think it's pretty clear from the fact that she went on to date him that she had a big experience with him, it was an encompassing one," Barbaro said. "It started off with her being asked to put on a bathing suit and taken out to the pool and by the end, she was traveling with him to Atlantic City in a helicopter, and we quoted her warmly and at length."
"Yeah, we pointed out that she went on to have a whirlwind romance with him," Twohey said.