Audience members in a Washington, DC, synagogue hurled boos and heckles at journalist Bob Woodward when he repeatedly interrupted two New York Times reporters during a discussion about their new Harvey Weinstein book Wednesday evening.
Woodward was speaking to reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey at the Sixth and I synagogue about their book “She Said” when audience members began walking out, booing and tweeting criticisms of the questions posed by Woodward.
In a phone call with The Post Wednesday night, Woodward defended his appearance, saying: “All I did was praise the book as a real handbook to investigative reporting and actually a masterpiece, and I asked questions about it.”
He added that Kantor and Twohey — who broke the Weinstein sex abuse scandal — signed a copy of their book for him after the event and thanked him for the “fabulous” questions.
Audience members, however, let their dismay be known soon after the discussion started, tweeted Robyn Swirling, a sexual abuse survivor who was in the audience Wednesday.
“Woodward was interrupting both of them immediately from their first answers,” Swirling said in a phone call early Thursday.
“He was consistently cutting them off, sometimes with follow-ups, sometimes to move into a slightly different question,” she added.
“Let her finish!” one audience member shouted from a balcony, Swirling said.
Others chimed in with boos and another shouted, “All women deserve to be heard!” when Woodward asked the authors about Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Swirling said at times Woodward asked pointed questions about investigative journalism, but added he responded with giddiness when asking about how they built sources who were victims of sexual abuse.
“When @mega2e explained she built trust w sources by talking abt how the harm can’t be undone but together they can build constructive power from pain, Woodward interrupted, giddily, ‘that was your standard line?’ He was excited they had a ‘go to’ for building trust with survivors,” Swirling tweeted after the event.
“While @realBobWoodward is undoubtedly an expert on how one builds an investigative story, he could not have been more ill equipped for this particular conversation about #metoo,” she added in another tweet.
Woodward even asked them if they ever told balky victim sources “if you’re silent, you’re enabling.” Twohey “told him clearly that was bullying tactic, it wasn’t the right strategy to get the story, and it’s not right period.”
Twohey and Kantor told Woodward repeatedly that they believed Weinstein’s assaults were about “power,” but he didn’t seem satisfied, Swirling tweeted.
“So it’s about power?” she said he asked. “It’s about sex also though, isn’t it?”