Updated July 14th.
Two Pulitzer-prize-winning journalists traveled from their desks in the New York Times newsroom to the front of a standing-room only crowd at the Hebrew Center in Vineyard Haven to give a talk on power dynamics, maintaining truth in the age of misinformation, and the ongoing fight for women’s equality.
On Thursday night, Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor — as part of a speaker series — headlined a talk called “Revealing Truth: Investigative Journalism, Now More Than Ever” to discuss their history as investigative reporters covering systems of oppression and stories of survival. With local author Geraldine Brooks moderating the discussion, they dove into the current administration, journalism now versus the apex of their careers, and the frightening possibilities of Artificial Intelligence.
“The base job of journalism is to scrutinize power,” Kantor told the room of over a hundred audience members. “[It] is our form of accountability.”
Twohey and Kantor are likely best known for an investigative piece that published in 2017 that detailed sexual assault allegations against disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, and in the article’s wake, started a movement of advocacy for people across the world — known by it’s hashtag: #MeToo.
“It slowly dawned on us that this wasn’t the story of one bad man — one bad apple,” Twohey said. Instead of focusing on Weinstein alone, the two reporters investigated Hollywood, their attorneys, fellow executives, friends — complicit characters in a complicated story they untangled one thread at a time. “In the end, it was journalists that helped expose what he did.”
While this investigation wasn’t the first of its kind for Twohey and Kantor — who had both previously reported on systems of power and those who abuse them — the publicity surrounding the article skyrocketed its popularity. And millions of women caught on, posting their own experiences with sexual assault across social media with the hashtag #MeToo. The pair wrote a book called “She Said” in 2019 about their coverage of the movement. And years later, Hollywood came knocking — a full-circle moment, they said — and a movie by the same name was produced in the book’s wake.
While many have celebrated the two journalists for exposing what some believe are corrupt systems of power, they’ve also had to navigate what Kantor called “big ethical questions,” paradoxes, and nuance.
From interviewing people with extreme ideas to posting articles that expose sometimes dangerous rhetoric, individuals, and groups, finding the truth within the heart of an issue has not been the simplest of paths for Kantor and Twohey, but it has been the one they’ve remained fiercely loyal to.
Kantor detailed her coverage of the Supreme Court on Thursday evening — specifically an underground ring of influence related to the 2022 Dobb’s Decision regarding federal abortion rights. In her pursuit, she had to grapple with some intense conversations, including an interview with an anti-abortion lobbyist who said he put together a secret group to befriend court justices to get the Dobb’s Decision passed.
And when an audience member asked about the New York Times’ coverage of Israel and Palestine, Kantor said although the subject matter may be divisive for many, “We have to find a way to absorb all of this pain — and understand it better.”
Twohey investigated the “It Ends With Us” lawsuits and claims of harassment between director and star Justin Baldoni and co-star Blake Lively — an extremely public issue that rose to an ethical debate across social media — where she exposed text messages from Baldoni that detailed his intent to launch a smear campaign on Lively. Baldoni filed a defamation suit against the New York Times for the article, which was later dismissed.
Twohey also recently uncovered that Elon Musk’s recreational drug use — once thought resigned to therapeutic doses of Ketamine — went far beyond those bounds.
“We’re in the most embattled era that I think we’ve ever worked in — in 25 years,” Twohey said.
With the rise of AI and “fake news,” Twohey said it can be difficult to maintain news literacy. “The consumption of information has changed so much, so drastically,” she said.
But both Kantor and Twohey spoke on the importance of journalism — not in perfection, but consistency. They said the key to their job is: just keep reporting.
Updated to reflect “She Said” was a book before being made into a movie and information on a lawsuit.