Episode 9: The President

So many of you asked to see the explosive interviews captured in The Catch and Kill Podcast ... and now you can. Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes, a six-part, half-hour documentary series directed by Emmy® winners Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (HBO’s Carrie Fisher: Wishful Drinking) and produced by World of Wonder, brings to life Ronan's intimate, revealing interviews with whistleblowers, journalists, private investigators and other sources, conducted for the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist’s podcast and bestselling book Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and A Conspiracy to Protect Predators.  The series expands on the podcast and the book, with never-before-seen footage and new insights into this culture-shaking story, enhanced by Bailey and Barbato’s creative weaving of additional sound and imagery from documents, audio tapes, photos, archive footage and striking illustrations. With fresh perspectives and detail — not just on the harrowing effort to expose one powerful predator, but on the systems that help cover up terrible crimes to this day — there are revelations in this series that may surprise even those familiar with the reporting. Listen to the trailer here and then watch or stream all six episodes tonight on HBO and HBO Max.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Monday, Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of sex crimes and taken into police custody. He faces up to 29 years in jail. Just hours after the jury announced its verdict, Ronan Farrow sat down with the actress Rose McGowan, the first woman to go on camera as Farrow reported on Weinstein, to reflect on the verdict and her long, strange journey to it—through Hollywood sexism, media executives willing to shut down her story, and hired spies willing to pose as friends. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In our final episode, we go inside the case that ultimately brought Donald Trump’s alliance with the National Enquirer tumbling down and landed one Trump associate behind bars. It’s the story of an historic scheme to swing a presidential race—one that starts at the Playboy Mansion and ends with a master list of Trump dirt, a safe full of secrets, and a shredding party at the Enquirer’s headquarters before the election. But it’s also a personal story, about a schoolteacher from the Midwest who found herself drawn into an underworld where porn, tabloids, and a black market for political information all intersect—and who came face to face with stark lessons about how powerful people can distort the truth, and what it takes to hold them accountable. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump’s alleged attempts to broker legally questionable deals to secure a political advantage are facing unprecedented scrutiny. But those deals didn’t start with Ukraine and Joe Biden. In the first of a two-part series about the sprawling saga of Trump’s alliance with the National Enquirer and its parent company, American Media Inc., we look at a secret deal between a presidential candidate and a tabloid empire—and the first instance during the campaign of a practice called “catch and kill.” It’s a stranger-than-fiction investigation of an unproven rumor and the very real transaction that buried it, featuring a former accountant named Pecker, a former bodyguard named Calamari, and the first extensive interview with the former Trump Tower doorman at the heart of the story.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At a precarious moment for the free press—as journalists face rhetoric about “fake news,” hostility toward reporters at political rallies, and efforts by powerful interests to suppress and manipulate the news—this episode looks at a group of people on the frontlines of the fight for the truth. Take a rare trip inside the walls of The New Yorker and learn how its editors, fact checkers, and lawyer stared down threats from titans of industry (and their hired spies) to break major stories. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"If you want to spend time with me, whatever, I will mentor you, teach you, whatever. But you have to, you know, relax with me," Harvey Weinstein says in never-before-heard tape from a police sting operation. "Don't be foolish," he warns her. "If you don’t trust me then we have no reason to do anything and you will lose big opportunities." Through that newly unearthed recording and testimonials from women who encountered Weinstein across the decades, this episode examines his pattern of dangling promises of career advancement—promises that could quickly turn into traps. It explores how that pattern could play a role in Weinstein's criminal trials in New York and Los Angeles. And it looks at the women who fought back and broke the cycle. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Harvey Weinstein’s criminal trial is underway in New York City. While the allegations against him were finally made public in October 2017, whispers of Weinstein’s alleged abuse go back decades. And so does the reporting on it. In this episode, we look at the small but dogged community of journalists who spent years trying to break the story open, including two who got tantalizingly close, The New Yorker's Ken Auletta and The Hollywood Reporter's Kim Masters. Taken together, their stories represent a decades-long, cross-country hunt for the hardest truth in Hollywood. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2017, Rowena Chiu declined requests for interviews from Ronan Farrow and other reporters. Chiu was 24 years old when she took a job as an assistant to Harvey Weinstein. It was only a matter of weeks before she found herself in a situation that would change the course of her life. In this episode, Chiu recounts her alleged assault, the effort to silence her through a non-disclosure agreement, and the forces that kept her from speaking to journalists for 20 years. She and others with allegations against Weinstein discuss the complex pressures that prevent sources from coming forward. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2015, Ambra Gutierrez agreed to do something that terrified her. A day after she told police that Harvey Weinstein had assaulted her, she decided to participate in a sting operation designed to extract a confession from the Hollywood executive. But those hours of dodging and weaving to escape Weinstein’s advances—and the threat he'd discover the wire she was wearing—would turn out to be just the beginning of a multi-year saga that pitted Gutierrez against powerful interests in Hollywood and law enforcement that seemed to want her evidence buried. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rich McHugh was a veteran TV news producer when he teamed up with Ronan Farrow, then a correspondent at NBC News, as he began reporting on Harvey Weinstein. McHugh didn’t expect that the assignment would lead to him witnessing what he believes to be a historic example of a major news outlet killing a story—when executives ordered him and Farrow to stand down. Now, McHugh tells a new part of his story, about what happened when Farrow took the investigation to the New Yorker and McHugh stayed behind to watch from the inside as NBC dealt with the fallout. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices