Journalist Bob Woodward’s moderation of the “She Said” book talk was widely panned by members of the audience.

Cliff Owen / AP Photo

Downtown synagogue and events space Sixth and I was packed for the sold-out kickoff to the She Said book tour on Wednesday.

The event featured New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey in conversation with famed investigative reporter Bob Woodward to discuss their new book, which reflects on their Pulitzer Prize-winning work on the many survivors of film producer Harvey Weinstein’s predatory sexual violence. Their dogged investigation led to Weinstein’s indictment and contributed to kicking off a still-ongoing conversation about the silence surrounding sexual harassment and assault, often called the #MeToo movement.

But it didn’t take long for Woodward’s style of interviewing and line of questioning to grate on the audience during the event. In the latest in a series of divisive D.C. book talks, his moderating led to boos, outbursts from the audience, and attendees leaving early.

“Pretty much right away, it became clear that it was not going well,” says Robyn Swirling, an event attendee whose tweet thread about her experience has been widely viewed. “Woodward started interrupting them from pretty much the first answers they were giving … I was sitting in the balcony, and I can tell you that everyone I could see seemed visibly uncomfortable and [was] getting visibly agitated.”

Swirling, an assault survivor whose job involves dealing with sexual harassment and assault, says she was both excited to attend the event and “sort of dreading it a bit because the subject matter is a lot, but I thought it was important and their voices are so important.”

About 20 minutes into the talk, amid what multiple audience members described as constant interrupting from Woodward, a person in the crowd shouted “Let her finish!” A large portion of the audience erupted into applause. “Within two minutes, or maybe not even two minutes, he interrupted one of them again,” says Swirling.

Lisa Toledo, another attendee, says that there was “a lot of irritation in the crowd,” which was largely comprised of women. “The way he was speaking to them — he would interrupt, he kept pushing — it was an experience a lot of people who try to report certain things” can relate to, she adds.

A slew of journalists were among the attendees, and many of them used social media to express their disappointment with Woodward’s moderation. Recode co-founder Kara Swisher tweeted that it was an “exercise in how not to interview.”

Woodward appeared fixated on one particular line of questioning: Weinstein’s motivations for committing sexual assault, asking repeatedly, “Why did he do it?” Kantor and Twohey declined to psychoanalyze Weinstein but said the dynamics of workplace sexual harassment are about power. Woodward repeatedly accused them of trying to dodge his question and kept contending that “it’s about sex, not just power,” according to multiple attendees. At one point, he characterized Weinstein’s behavior as “weird foreplay,” per Swirling.

“There were boos, there were shouts to move on. When he said, ‘It’s about sex though,’ about half the audience shouted no,” says Swirling. “Not only was he clearly wrong about the dynamics of sexual violence, but also, read the room.”

Multiple attendees say that Twohey and Kantor remained professional throughout the event. “They’re so intentional and professional, and I could tell from their questions and answers that they really want to do their job well and have integrity with what they do,” says Toledo.

“He kept saying, ‘You’re not answering my question,’ but it seemed like he wasn’t listening,” says Toledo. Kantor and Twohey were “reporting not from the psychology of one man, but from the perspective of all the people who were silenced.”

Swirling says that she has been to many talks at Sixth and I, but has “certainly never seen booing and heckling, and I have never seen people leave like that … At no point did he seem to get that there was anything wrong with his behavior or questions or assertions.”

https://twitter.com/hilaryr/status/1179545934683922434

In the second question during the audience Q&A session, someone directly confronted Woodward about interrupting Kantor and Twohey, prompting audience applause. “It didn’t seem to faze him,” says Swirling.

But during that same Q&A, one man stood up and brandished a copy of a Watergate-era Washington Post. He thanked Woodward and praised him as a hero. He did not have a question for Kantor and Twohey.

Woodward has not responded to a request for comment from DCist. He told the New York Post that “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, after the talk, Kantor and Twohey signed a copy of She Said for him and thanked him for his “fabulous” questions, per the New York Post. He also told the Washington Post that the authors asked him to moderate the book talk.

In an email to DCist, Kantor and Twohey write, “We’re just starting our book tour, and we’re grateful to all the moderators—Bob Woodward, Katie Couric, America Ferrera, and many others—who have agreed to join us onstage. We welcome all questions, from them and especially from the audience, because each one is an opportunity to relate the wrenching decisions that many of our sources had to make and grapple with #MeToo as an example and test of social change in our time.”

Sixth and I declined to comment. The event was organized through local bookstore Politics and Prose.

“So often, especially as women, we sit there and feel uncomfortable and wonder if it’s just us,” says Swirling. “It was meaningful to me at least in being able to see, Oh it’s not just me that’s noticing these interruptions. It’s not just me noticing this line of questioning. It was a full audience.”

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