New York Magazine

New York Magazine was one of the outlets investigating Harvey Weinstein’s treatment of women before The New York Times published its 2017 report. Its reporting effort became part of a larger pattern of parallel investigations that struggled to find sources willing to speak, while Weinstein sought to contain what might be disclosed. The evidence presents the magazine’s work as an attempted exposé that stalled, not as a published investigation with a reported conclusion.

Early Reporting Efforts

By the time Jodi Kantor heard about the reporting, a writer at New York Magazine and Ronan Farrow had both tried to investigate Weinstein, but neither effort had produced a story. The absence of publication did not mean the rumors had disappeared: accounts of Weinstein’s conduct had circulated for years, yet remained difficult to document publicly. The magazine’s attempt was one of several efforts that had not broken through that silence.

Benjamin Wallace’s Investigation

Benjamin Wallace, a writer for the magazine, pursued an investigation into Weinstein’s treatment of women. Seth Freedman approached Wallace offering information of interest but did not deliver it. Wallace was also contacted by a woman presenting herself as a potential source, who used the name Anna. Wallace said little during their meeting because he suspected she might be working for Weinstein.

Wallace and his editors eventually suspended the investigation. He later explained that no one was talking and that the story felt like a dead end. The reporting’s limit was therefore not simply a lack of rumors: the investigation could not turn them into accounts that sources were prepared to share.

Pressure Around the Story

The magazine’s work also entered Weinstein’s conversations with people who might have information. After Gwyneth Paltrow sent him a condolence email following the death of his mother, Weinstein read it aloud at the funeral and later called her. When the conversation turned to New York Magazine’s exposé, he told Paltrow that the magazine had nothing and asked her to promise she would not discuss an earlier incident at the Peninsula. He framed the request as protection for women who had accepted his overtures. Paltrow declined the magazine’s interview request but did not tell him whether she would ever speak publicly.

The investigation was also a target of Black Cube’s efforts. The woman who had approached Wallace as a potential source was a Black Cube agent posing under a false identity. Her contact, alongside Freedman’s unfulfilled offer of information, placed Wallace’s reporting amid efforts to gather intelligence on journalists and potential sources. The evidence does not establish that these approaches alone caused the suspension; it records Wallace’s suspicion, the editors’ decision to stop, and his later description of a story in which no one would talk.

Significance and Limits

New York Magazine’s experience shows how a story can remain unreported even when allegations and rumors are already circulating: journalists need people willing to provide accounts, and those sources may be hard to reach when they fear exposure or pressure. Weinstein’s appeal to Paltrow and the approaches to Wallace mark different ways the unsettled investigation was contained or complicated. The available account ends with Wallace’s stalled inquiry, while the magazine’s earlier attempt remains part of the broader pre-publication history rather than a completed exposé.