NBC News hits back against Farrow book

NBC News pushed back against investigative journalist Ronan Farrow on Monday, denying his allegations that the network tried to conceal complaints about former “Today” host Matt Lauer and obstruct Farrow’s reporting into film mogul Harvey Weinstein.

“We have no secrets and nothing to hide,” NBC News President Noah Oppenheim wrote in an extensive memo, which was sent to employees of NBC News and MSNBC in response to reporting in Farrow’s new book, “Catch and Kill.”

Oppenheim, who is portrayed in the book as failing to understand the newsworthiness of Farrow’s investigation into sexual misconduct allegations involving Weinstein, described the reporting in it as a “smear” and a “conspiracy theory.”

Farrow has also blamed the NBC News chairman, Andrew Lack, for impeding his reporting on Weinstein. Farrow left the network in 2017 and later won a Pulitzer Prize for his work on the story, which was published in The New Yorker.

The memo on Monday is NBC’s strongest and most specific response yet to Farrow, who has spent recent days promoting and defending his book, which is expected to be released Tuesday.

“Farrow’s effort to defame NBC News is clearly motivated not by a pursuit of truth, but an ax to grind,” Oppenheim wrote. “It is built on a series of distortions, confused timelines and outright inaccuracies.”

The book contains new details about the circumstances of Lauer’s firing in November 2017, which followed a complaint of sexual misconduct against him.

On Monday, Oppenheim addressed Farrow’s finding that NBC used multiple paid settlements to silence employees who had reported Lauer’s behavior before November 2017.

“Not only is this false, the so-called evidence Farrow uses in his book to support the charge collapses under the slightest scrutiny,” Oppenheim wrote.

Appearing on “CBS This Morning” on Monday, Farrow said that his book “is an extraordinarily, meticulously fact-checked work of investigative journalism” and that he is “very confident” in his reporting.