NBC Exec Comes Out Fighting After Farrow Accusations

Ronan Farrow's name is spread across headlines Tuesday as his new expose hits bookshelves. From Catch and Kill, CNN pulls the claim that National Enquirer Editor-in-Chief Dylan Howard directed staffers to shred "a Trump-related document" held in a safe as reporters investigated the tabloid's "catch and kill" relationship with the president. Citing Farrow's reporting, the Guardian reports Howard also had a deal with Harvey Weinstein that involved investigating his accusers. The outlet notes online seller Booktopia made Catch and Kill unavailable for sale after Howard last month suggested the book contained "false and defamatory allegations." With an "extraordinary" memo to staffers on Monday, NBC News President Noah Oppenheim is now claiming the same, per CNN.

Catch and Kill is a book "built on a series of distortions, confused timelines, and outright inaccuracies" from a former NBC employee with "an ax to grind," Oppenheim writes. He appears to allude to reports, confirmed as true by Farrow and producer Rich McHugh, that NBC killed Farrow's Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of Weinstein before it was published in the New Yorker. Catch and Kill further notes Weinstein claimed to have deals with NBC executives who had their own secrets, while the network relied on nondisclosure agreements to suppress misconduct allegations, per CNN. NBC denies it had any deal with Weinstein, however. According to Oppenheim, Farrow's Weinstein reporting didn't meet NBC standards because no accuser sat for an on-camera, on-the-record interview. (More Ronan Farrow stories.)