The Inside Story of Matt Lauer's Investigation Into Ronan Farrow's Reporting On Him

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Today, for the first time since he was suddenly fired as the host of the Today show back in late November of 2017, Matt Lauer has extensively detailed his version of the events that led to his dramatic fall from grace, and eventually to a book in which he was accused of rape. He did so in an in-depth piece on this website, the result of his own exhaustive investigation into Ronan Farrow’s reporting about him for Catch and Kill, which came out last fall.

Lauer’s account is both extraordinary and important on many levels. One of which is that it is probably the first time, in at least the history of the modern media, in which one celebrity journalist has done a deep investigation into the work of another who had been so instrumental in a very serious allegation against them (it should be noted that the vast majority of Lauer’s essay directly attacks Farrow’s reporting, and does not criticize his primary accuser, former NBC producer Brooke Nevils). Since I played a small but significant role in how Lauer’s reporting came to be, it seems imperative that I provide some context for how and why this all happened.

To review, soon after Farrow’s book came out, and after I had written a column which raised questions about the reliability of Farrow’s account, Lauer called me. As strange as it may seem, this was not that much of a surprise because he and I had done three high-profile — and rather combative — interviews together on the Today show, and I had kept in touch with one of his now former producers.

After many hours of very frank discussion on the phone, we agreed that we would meet in his home — about 3,000 miles from where I live — for an extremely comprehensive and unusual “off the record” interview, the first he had done since his firing from NBC. I then wrote this piece making the case that Lauer had a very compelling story to tell, but that there may not be a fair place in the current media environment for him to share it. That was followed by another column confronting Farrow about why he has refused to answer any of my questions for him, or even have a private conversation with me about what I had learned about the other side of this story, and the seemingly flawed nature of his reporting on this case.

After all that created quite a stir, especially in the entertainment media, Lauer and I continued to speak via the phone on a regular basis. It was quite striking to see the man who, when we met, had not even opened Farrow’s book (which, significantly, meant that I was getting, face-to-face, his real-time reaction to many of Farrow’s allegations) and didn’t even want me to place it on his kitchen table, transform into someone who was now literally picking it all apart, sentence by sentence.

The initial reading of Farrow’s two chapters on Lauer was shocking to me because it was so apparent how little corroboration he had for any of his accusations against Lauer. It was also quite clear to me that Farrow himself may have played a significant and journalistically inappropriate role in how Nevils came to believe — in Farrow’s own words to Lauer and a friend during their meeting before his book’s publication–“in hindsight” that Lauer had committed an act of violence against her during the 2014 Olympics.

But those educated suspicions were almost nothing compared to my conclusions after learning what Lauer found on his own by simply speaking directly, and at length, to many of the people referenced in Farrow’s book as witnesses to these alleged events (including, remarkably, two of Nevils’ ex-boyfriends) who, shockingly, Farrow and his fact-checker didn’t even bother to contact. After it became obvious that there was a very legitimate story here about journalistic malfeasance on the part of someone to whom the news media has blindly given enormous power, Lauer asked me if there was a respected mainstream news reporter to whom he could give this information in the hopes that they might do their own investigation into Farrow’s work.

After doing my own research, and having been through this exact situation in other similar stories before, I told him that, because of the way the modern news media now values safety and popularity over fairness and truth, combined with the incredible power of the #MeToo movement and Farrow’s special untouchable status within the elite media club, this idea simply would not work. Instead, I suggested that the only way to viably get his version of this story out in the public domain was for him to use the assets of his celebrity and unique knowledge of the case to his advantage by writing it himself.

This process proved to be far more arduous and lengthy than could have been anticipated at that time. Here are just some of the reasons why Lauer’s story is only coming out now, many months after Farrow’s book, and only just after The New York Times finally published their own critical analysis of his reporting in it:

• The nature of Lauer’s investigation was inherently arduous, especially with most people involved in this story still being employed in the media business, and therefore being very hesitant to talk publicly.
• Lauer continued receiving credible, though somewhat conflicting and ambiguous, reports, including from a mainstream news reporter, that Nevils was about to publish a book of her own, possibly from the same publishing company which put out Farrow’s book.
• After the publication of Farrow’s book, once the pre-Christmas period passed, the very busy 2020 news calendar was never conducive to a sensible time to release Lauer’s detailed rebuttal, and personal considerations delayed publication further, before the coronavirus then fundamentally changed the world.
• The piece, which is far too comprehensive for almost any print outlet, was offered to one other very prestigious publication before Mediaite, one which was very interested in releasing it, but appeared to link any public dissemination to an interview with Lauer, something he apparently does not want to do in direct conjunction with the piece he just released.

The public and the news media should know that there is far more that Lauer found than what is in his already rather lengthy piece. However, much of that material was omitted out of respect for his sources. This is particularly true for Nevils’ two former boyfriends, who have taken a huge risk by telling their version of events to someone who can do absolutely nothing for them, and who both have sound romantic-jealousy reasons to hold a grudge against Lauer.

One other element which I personally believe to be rather significant is that after Farrow’s book came out, while on MSNBC, he and Rachel Maddow dramatically revealed that NBC was willing to let anyone who signed an NDA with them, who feels like it is keeping them from speaking publicly about sexual abuse, out of their agreement. It has now been six months since that happened, and yet there is still no indication that anyone has done so regarding allegations against Lauer.

Lauer is not the only primary target of Farrow’s book with whom I have spoken. Another, one whose role in the book was indirectly tied to Lauer’s, told me, in great detail, why they are sure many things Farrow wrote are not just inaccurate, but actually nonsensical, claiming that they are close to filing a lawsuit against the author and the book’s publisher.

While the issue of whether Matt Lauer is really a sexual abuser of women is indeed newsworthy, it is not the focal point in this piece. Instead, my greater concern here is the dangerous new rules we are creating to interpret allegations of sexual abuse, as well as the credibility of the person to whom the news media has essentially ceded the ultimate power to enforce those rules, even when he has, as in the case of Matt Lauer and NBC, obvious conflicts of interest, and very significant holes in his reporting.

At this point, the news media should be asking some very serious questions of Ronan Farrow. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt whether that will happen, and I am even more skeptical that there is any real chance that he can provide remotely satisfactory answers.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.