David Carr, the late
New York Times columnist, had hinted at that behavior, as well: “As the keeper of star-making machinery,” Carr wrote in a
2001 profile of the mogul for
New York magazine, “Weinstein has re-engineered the media process so that he lives beyond its downsides.” In 2015,
Gawker, following up on
a story from 2012,
invited readers to “Tell Us What You Know About Harvey Weinstein’s Open Secret.”
No one did, apparently. Or not enough people did to put the open secret on the record. Weinstein went on as he did for so long in part because of journalism’s reporting standards, which are in turn connected to legal and cultural standards: If something can’t be proven, it would be irresponsible and reckless to publish it. It’s perhaps no accident that “open secret,” as a phrase,
exploded in popularity in the U.S. during the mid-to-late 1800s—a time that also witnessed the rise of the telegraph and the penny press, and a time in which secrets themselves could newly operate at scale. The phrase declined sharply in the early 20th century, which is also the time the American press began professionalizing.
