Each year, The New York Public Library gives the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism to a journalist whose work brings clarity and public attention to important issues, events, or policies. As a member of the Library Review Committee, I have the privilege of helping select five finalists whose works will enlighten, educate, and impact positive social change. It is my honor to introduce one of the finalists: She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story that Helped Ignite a Movement  by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey.

She Said is a master class in investigative reporting. The book documents how Kantor and Twohey, journalists working for the New York Times, doggedly pursued and broke the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault story. Over the course of several years, they chased down leads, interviewed dozens of women and former employees (convincing many of them to go on the record), and, ultimately, established “a clear and overwhelming body of evidence of wrongdoing.” The Times article unleashed a flood of further reporting and accusations that ended Weinstein’s career and ignited the simmering #MeToo movement.

The book is not a mere recounting of the accusations against Weinstein and the steadfast process of gathering publishable evidence against him. It focuses the reader's attention on the power structures—legal, corporate, patriarchal—that served to silence accusers, cover up misdeeds, thwart investigations and otherwise enable decades of egregious, criminal behavior. Kantor and Twohey explore the role and complicity of many of the people who upheld these power structures including Weinstein's brother and business partner Bob, his corporate accountant Irwin Reiter, and an attorney with a reputation as a "celebrity feminist lawyer" (and the daughter of high-profile women's rights attorney Gloria Allred) Lisa Bloom. It's worth noting that Kantor and Twohey also highlight how Allred, to her part, drew revenue from negotiating settlements in secrecy that successfully buried allegations of harassment while advocating that the privacy was in the interest of the accusers not the aforementioned power structures of the accused.

Nearly a year to the day after the Times' Weinstein story was published, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford appeared before a US Senate Committee and accused then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while drunk during a high school house party. Megan Twohey conducted the first post-hearing interview of Ford and the second, shorter section of the book uses Ford's story—her reluctance to come forward and the frenzy of media attention that followed—to explore what happens to women after they share their stories.

For all the meticulousness and sometimes uncomfortableness of their reporting methods, She Said reads like a thriller, taking the reader along on a suspenseful, tense ride navigating complex emotional waters and very real intimidation tactics employed by Weinstein to impede them. Not surprisingly, Kantor and Twohey's work was acknowledged with a Pulitzer Prize for "explosive, impactful journalism."

For more outstanding investigative journalism, learn about the other Bernstein Award finalists for 2020.

More about the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism

The Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism was established in 1987 through a gift from Joseph Frank Bernstein in honor of journalist Helen Bernstein Fealy. Each year, finalists are selected by a nine-member Library Review Committee, and winners are then chosen by the Bernstein Selection Committee. Authors must be working as journalists, or have worked in journalism for a significant portion of their careers, whether as reporters or commentators in newspapers, magazines, or broadcasting. A book's subject matter must be journalistic in nature, with potential for influencing public opinion or policy and drawing public attention to important current issues or events of global/national significance.