Jodi Kantor

The truth is more powerful.

I appreciate you being aghast at it because it's nuts, and I want that to be the public's reaction.

But just the way I want to build my sources confidence...

that they can tell the truth and that I can get them through the process safely.

I want to build the public's confidence that these stories can be reported.

There is a danger here, and I've heard other writers do it, of exaggerating

the peril we face, and I think it's a bad thing to do because I want people to know that the tools of journalism, which are time-tested and powerful, they're not one-offs.

Like, the Weinstein story was not an anomaly.

It worked because our craft worked.

So the other reason not to exaggerate, Debbie, is that I have too many colleagues who are facing bigger threats, colleagues who report across the world that life is really dangerous for journalists in Mexico.

You know how many journalists died covering the Israel-Gaza war.

So many different countries, so many different places.

Journalists being put in jail in Russia.

Exactly.

And in this country, we're more and more worried about threats to journalists and really anybody who participates in public life.

So that's why I am very wary.

of being too melodramatic about what we faced with Weinstein because I know a lot of other journalists who have taken bigger risks than I have.

You've described the reporting as requiring hundreds of interviews and a rigorous accumulation of evidence.

But we're living in a time now when public trust in truth itself is fragmenting and it seems more and more every day that

that the leaders of this country are fragmenting it even more.