Jodi Kantor

Megan Twohey

A FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, DAILY TELEGRAPH, METRO, ELLE AND OLDIE BOOK OF THE YEAR'Feels like a Hollywood film in the making' DAILY TELEGRAPH'Essential' MARGARET ATWOOD'Cinematic, remarkable' GUARDIAN'Totally gripping' JON RONSON'Has the morally satisfying arc of a thriller, with all the suspense. For lovers of Spotlight' iOn 5 October 2017, the New York Times published an article by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey that helped change the world.Hollywood was talking as never before. Kantor and Twohey outmanoeuvred Harvey Weinstein, his team of defenders and private investigators, convincing some of the most famous women in the world - and some unknown ones - to go on the record.This is how they did it.

The New York Times Bestseller

She Said

From the Pulitzer-prize winning reporters who broke the news of Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment and abuse comes the thrilling untold story of their investigation and its consequences for the #MeToo movement.

Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement

While the story is extremely relevant I gound the writing style really hatd to follow unfortunately. 

antonia maria wagner she/they

Patrick Book

This might not be for everyone, but if you love seeing how stories are pursued and the intricacies of difficult reportage this is a true page-turner.

Lindy

I do think it's worth reading. That said, it's oddly structured, the authors' insights are scant, and it's overall more dry than I think serves the material/would like.

iamazoo

i don’t know why i started this with very low expectations…but it managed to be interesting and balanced without losing any of the gravity that the story deserves.

Liz B

I listened to the audiobook, which I enjoyed. The first half of the book is much stronger, because it's basically inside baseball of how they broke the Weinstein story, which is really fascinating. The second half is still an interesting look at Dr. Blasey Ford's journey to the live testimony we all watched, but the reporters weren't very integral to that story & fewer details felt new or surprising. One of the many themes of this book is that it's honestly not very surprising or interesting that powerful, entitled men abuse women. BUT what comes through so clearly is how many other people, including other "feminist" women, play a huge role in allowing and enabling that abuse to go unchecked.

Sophie L Smith 

This book was fascinating and moving, an in-depth look into the beginning of the Me Too movement

Alex Q

Many times throughout this book I found myself either cheering, or on the verge of tears during my commute.

Rebeca Keren Nuñez

Sumamente interesante y necesario. Ademas tuve sentimientos encontrados, ya que los hechos sobre los que se basa la investigación, desafortunadamente tuve la experiencia de vivirlos también. Me parece importantísimo que de discuta sobre el tema y no podemos llamarnos una sociedad igualitaria o evolucionado, si no somos capaces de abordar estos temas, y de cambiar los paradigmas del patriarcado.

Jenna

I finished She Said by Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey on audio and it was SO good! It’s about their reporting on Harvey Weinstein and the start of the me too movement up to Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony.

I loved getting the behind the scenes look at the reporting. There were so many moments when it was unclear if any sources would agree to go on the record. I also learned so much more about Weinstein’s silencing of victims through NDAs than I previously understood.

I am so thankful for both the brave women who came forward to share their stories and the many women behind the scenes who gave their all to discover and share the truth. This is a really powerful book. In the audiobook, Jodi and Megan read the foreword and the epilogue themselves, which made the book feel even more personal. I’d highly recommend this one. Also a quick reminder that I listened to this book for free - a major perk of working for @librofm.

Madhuri Sridhara

A great book which describes in detail all the work that went into brining down Weinstein. I'm glad I finally read it!

Suz Corso

To me, this book was an incredibly moving account of the resilience of women in the face of sexual assault, harassment, intimidation, retaliation, and other terrible happenings. After finishing this book, I feel I have a deeper understanding of many things, such as the incredibly hard work it takes to break a credible story and take down an abuser who was so prominent in Hollywood and the world in general. This book is courageous and inspiring and informative.

Lewis Smith

Equal parts harrowing and inspiring. The effort that goes into good journalism is really something. As are the lengths it’s possible to go to prevent it.

Caroline Lewicki

This is an incredible, powerful read. A fascinating look at the tough legwork Kantor and Twohey put into journalism, but more importantly it's about believing survivors of sexual assault and uniting to make a powerful voice against sexual offenders like Harvey Weinstein. It's emotional but also journalistic in its approach. On top of drawing you in to the story of exposing Harvey Weinstein, it highlights how careful and informed and persistent journalists need to be in order to get a story right.

Sahi K

I will not presume to be in any way capable of reviewing this brilliant book because it’s an extremely well written true account of the investigation and brings to light some systemic truths that we probably are well aware of, but haven’t seen discussed openly a lot. Instead, I think I’ll just share how I felt while reading it.

I’ve only lived in the US for less than a decade now and while I have a seen a Hollywood movie or two since childhood, I’ve never been much knowledgeable about the industry or its major players. So, when the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke out, all the names associated with it didn’t mean anything to me. The significance for me was mostly about the movement it created and the outpouring of stories we got to hear after that. It reinforced the fact that sexual harassment is rampant in the world, regardless of the industry or field you are in and what age you are. It’s all about power, and those who have it will exercise it in whatever way they can without fear of consequences because they know that the whole system is behind them. And while this book goes into a lot of detail about the investigation and the many women Kantor and Twohey spoke to, it also shows us the blatant disregard shown by so many other people towards these women and how all the sexual predation was just treated as matter of fact.

My singular emotion while reading this book was anger. And helplessness. Maybe some hope too, but I won’t say it was a lot. The way that Weinstein used his power, bullying tactics and promises of helping their career to harass and assault and overpower so many young women is appalling to read about. I would never judge the women for not coming out and sharing their stories because it’s always them who had a lot to lose and they have their right to self-preservation. It’s the other people I find fault with - those around Weinstein who helped him cover up all the incidents by forcing the women with watertight settlements and NDAs, who thought his behavior was okay as long as it wasn’t a liability to the company, who decided that it must be the women coming onto him for a chance to go ahead in their careers, the high profile lawyers like David Boies, Gloria Allred and Lisa Bloom who feel completely justified in the way they defended Weinstein and shamed and blamed the women and the journalists covering the story. These are people even I have admired, watched documentaries about their work on marriage equality and women’s rights, and now to realize that powerful people always seem to support those in power - I just can’t describe the horror I’m feeling. If you’ve followed any of the twitter trends on the day of this book’s release, you must have seen the very enlightening (and loathsome) memo that Lisa Bloom wrote to Weinstein about how they can frame a narrative to victim blame and showcase him as an old man trying to understand the ever changing social mores. It really was an eye opener and I don’t think I will ever implicitly trust any “popular” activist again, especially lawyers. 

The last section of the book also goes into some detail about the Kavanaugh hearings and Dr. Ford’s testimony, particularly how she felt in the weeks leading up to the day and how her life has irrevocably changed since then. It just makes me furious that nothing fundamental has really has changed since the years after Anita Hill and women have to still weigh their safety and career prospects vs the possibility of telling their story and maybe getting some vindication and justice. And I’m currently feeling even more hopeless because between the few hours when I finished this book and I’m writing this review, the New York Times published excerpts from another book with corroborating evidence for other allegations against Kavanaugh. And it’s really exhausting to see that while Dr. Ford has to deal with death threats, this man will be on the Supreme Court for most of our lifetime. 

To conclude, I just wanna say thank you to all the women who came forward to tell their story, putting their livelihoods and privacy on the line, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey for their incessant desire to bring this story to light in its entirety while facing off the whole bully machine of Weinstein, and everyone else at NYT who made this possible. I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to know more about this brilliant piece of investigative journalism and support women in their fight for equality and right to work without being harassed.

Maytal

I would give this a 3.5. It was a great peek into what went into getting women’s stories told against basically the boogeyman. But it seemed to lack a certain something that I can’t quite put my finger on. It also made me feel kindness towards Gwyneth Paltrow which I never thought I’d feel.

Emily C Peterson

Cindy

She Said is a powerful account of the NYT investigation that unearthed the decades-long abuse at the hands of Harvey Weinstein. There was so much tireless work that led up to the story, from tracking people down and attempting to find testimonials. We have long since been embedded in a victim-blaming culture that easily casts disbelief on women and their testimonials, and the reluctance of many women to come forward (from the book) illustrates just how poisonous and insidious victim-blaming culture has become. The narrative can feel disjointed at times (it jumps from the publication of the Weinstein story to Christine Blasey Ford quite abruptly) and sometimes dry, but it still has that lasting effect of making you think, far after the last page.

Chelsea White

Incredibly moving and powerful. Reading the backstory to the reporting of one of the most consequential pieces of journalism of our lifetimes was eye opening. To see how much work was put in, and how, up until the last hour, things were changing rapidly. Reading it, especially in the wake of Weinstein’s sentencing, was emotional and poignant. I’d highly recommend this book. It is dense, but well worth it to know just how much was going on behind the scenes of their initial story, and their coverage of Ford.

Sameer Vasta

Here at home, we subscribe to a few newspapers and magazines, but I often feel like it isn't enough.

The truth is that good journalism costs money, and that's not something we think of very often. It's easy to read an article online and forget about the immense amount of work that went into writing that piece, and because of that ease, I know I'm guilty of not always giving journalism its due.


  She Said
, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's recounting of how they broke the news of Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment and abuse for the New York Times, is striking and sobering because of the subject matter of the book, and also because of just how seminal their reporting was to launch a movement. It is especially poignant, however, as an exposé on how journalism actually works, and how much time, effort, and frustration goes into reporting a story of this magnitude.

The book—simple, direct, detailed, and weighty—can be hard to read because the subject matter is so horrific. It is, however, important to read because of the truth it unveils:

The United States had a system for muting sexual harassment claims, which often enabled the harassers instead of stopping them. Women routinely signed away the right to talk about their own experiences. Harassers often continued onward, finding fresh ground on which to commit the same offenses. The settlements and confidentiality agreements were almost never examined in law school classrooms or open court. This was why the public had never really understood that this was happening. Even those in the room with long histories of covering gender issues had never fully registered what was going on.

Because of the reporting done by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, that system that kept harassment hidden came to light. Because of their journalism, and the incredible journalistic work done by people all around them, we are able to take action on some of these hideous abuses.


  She Said
 reminds us all that journalism is an important, worthwhile endeavour that can change the world. And that we all need to do more to support that work.

I'm off to subscribe to a few more news magazines, now.

(this snippet of marginalia was originally published on inthemargins.ca)

Luke Jones

** spoiler alert **
           I said to a friend that this book makes Ronan Farrow’s Catch & Kill feel like a sidekick companion piece. Both excellent books, but the focus on the victims in this one versus the corporate espionage in Catch & Kill just hit different.

That said, this book isn’t without flaws. The pace changed towards the end of the book when the topic switched from Weinstein to Kavannaugh (sp?). It didn’t detract from how good the journalism was, but it felt retrofitted and awkward to switch to a new story after the main part was concluded.

Catch me: recommending this and Catch & Kill to everyone I know.

She Said The New York Times Bestseller

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