New York Times’ Ben Smith shocks with Ronan Farrow criticism

The New York Times media columnist Ben Smith shocked media watchers with an article critical of some of Ronan Farrow's reporting, with some observers praising Smith’s courage and others condemning the column.

Smith’s piece, which hit the Internet on Sunday night, asks the question in its headline, “Is Ronan Farrow Too Good to Be True?”

Smith began the piece by noting that Farrow’s 2018 report on the financial records of President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen “set off a frenzied reaction” with liberal pundits that doesn’t stand the test of time.

“Two years after publication, little of Mr. Farrow’s article holds up, according to prosecutors and court documents,” Smith wrote.

The columnist then explored Farrow’s rise from low-rated MSNBC host to star investigative reporter.

“Farrow may now be the most famous investigative reporter in America, a rare celebrity-journalist who followed the opposite path of most in the profession: He began as a boy-wonder talk show host and worked his way downward to the coal face of hard investigative reporting,” Smith wrote.

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Farrow helped launch the #MeToo movement and won the coveted Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the sexual misconduct of now-disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Farrow famously took his award-winning work to the New Yorker when NBC News refused to publish it.

“But some aspects of his work made me wonder if Mr. Farrow didn’t, at times, fly a little too close to the sun,” Smith wrote. “Because if you scratch at Mr. Farrow’s reporting in The New Yorker and in his 2019 bestseller, ‘Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators,’ you start to see some shakiness at its foundation."

Smith said Farrow “delivers narratives that are irresistibly cinematic — with unmistakable heroes and villains” but “often omits the complicating facts and inconvenient details that may make them less dramatic.” He admits Farrow “is not a fabulist,” and while sometimes misleading he certainty doesn’t make things up.

“His work, though, reveals the weakness of a kind of resistance journalism that has thrived in the age of Donald Trump: That if reporters swim ably along with the tides of social media and produce damaging reporting about public figures most disliked by the loudest voices, the old rules of fairness and open-mindedness can seem more like impediments than essential journalistic imperatives,” Smith wrote. “That can be a dangerous approach, particularly in a moment when the idea of truth and a shared set of facts is under assault.”

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Smith noted that New Yorker editor David Remnick called Farrow’s reporting "scrupulous, tireless, and, above all, fair,” while Farrow himself told the Times that “he brings ‘caution, rigor, and nuance’ to each of his stories.”

Smith then launched into a lengthy critique of Farrow’s reporting, claiming that he frequently relies on “conspiracy” to shape his work.

“His stories are built and sold on his belief — which he rarely proves — that powerful forces and people are conspiring against those trying to do good, especially Mr. Farrow himself,” Smith wrote.

Smith went on to criticize Farrow’s version of why NBC wouldn’t publish the Weinstein reporting, his report that Hillary Clinton “also sought to kill his reporting and protect” Weinstein and even Farrow’s claim that “close to 50” potential Weinstein jurors were sent home because they had read his book.

Smith, who had run BuzzFeed News for the past eight years before joining the Times in March, has been criticized himself in the past. He made headlines for being first outlet to publish the infamous dossier formulated by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, which was funded by the DNC and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election. The dossier had many salacious allegations against President Trump that were widely debunked, according to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

Readers flocked to social media, as many were shocked that Smith's liberal newspaper would try to tear down a celebrated reporter like Farrow.

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Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple called the piece “super-deep accountability journalism” but said it failed to excuse NBC’s “fumbling” of the Weinstein situation.

Some observers complimented Smith for the piece:

Others found issues with Smith's takedown:

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Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.