By Meredith Melland
Reporter Jodi Kantor’s stories often ripple from the pages of The New York Times and transform into massive waves that break gender barriers, bring nuance on politics and culture to the surface and inspire change that continues to reverberate through the United States’ social fabric.
Her reporting on the difficulties facing low-wage lactating workers in 2006 prompted two women to design mobile lactation suites that have been brought to businesses around the world. Starbucks changed their scheduling policies when she reported on the chain’s irregular hours, even before she reported the biggest story of her career.
Kantor and fellow Times investigative reporter Megan Twohey revealed three decades of sexual assault allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein in 2017 — prompting the Weinstein Corporation to fire him and catalyzing thousands of women to share stories of sexual abuse or harassment using Tarana Burke’s Twitter hashtag, “#MeToo.”
As she sat with Twohey in the basement of Chicago’s Vic Theatre before an event for She Said — their book on the reporting process and effects of the Weinstein investigation — and signed books as they were slid to her in a fluid assembly line, Kantor described how she uses gender as a lens for investigative reporting.
“I think covering politics in general is part of what made me want to use gender as an investigative topic,” Kantor said.
When she covered the 2008 presidential campaign and election, Kantor was struck by how the heated discussion on Hilary Clinton’s potential candidacy was permeated with sexism, partisanship and personal feelings.
“I just remember thinking with this, what the gender debate in the U.S. needs is more facts and it needs especially more airing of hidden and secret facts,” she said.
After reporting on the 2012 election and writing a book about the Obamas, Kantor directly pursued stories on gender inequities. She reported on the gender opportunity gap of 1994 Stanford graduates and attempts to change the male-oriented culture of Harvard Business School, which sparked nationwide discussion of college rules on admission and treatment.
By the time she embarked on the Weinstein story with Twohey, she was an open secrets veteran. Still, some moments in the months of intense reporting affected Kantor emotionally, especially when Ashley Judd agreed to be the first survivor to go on the record in what felt like a “massive leap of faith.”
“I still wanted to sound professional, and I remember in that moment searching for something to say to her, and sort of the best I could muster was ‘this means the world to me as a journalist,’” Kantor said.
Kantor said that she and Twohey preferred to keep the focus on their sources’ feelings and pain to understand their stories and effectively do their jobs.
“If you were diagnosed with cancer, you wouldn’t necessarily want to be speaking to a doctor who was weeping in the room with you,” Kantor said.
Though the investigation required the reporters to conduct several meticulous interviews with women divulging personal stories, Kantor stressed that they still had to establish clear journalist-source relationships.
“This reporting definitely requires the ability to talk to people who may have been deeply traumatized, who are recalling their worst memories as they speak to you, but that only makes it all the more important to be professional and to be collected,” Kantor said.
With such a dark subject, working with a partner helped her process information while maintaining appropriate distance from the sources.
“That’s part of why the partnership between Megan and I became so important to both of us, because that was the place where we could take our own feelings about this work,” Kantor said.
The Weinstein story and the duo’s subsequent investigations have continued to impact the country and culture, but not every Kantor article has created widespread social reform. In 2016, she developed a series with reporter Catrin Einhorn on Canadian citizens who adopted Syrian refugees.
“It’s one of the most extraordinary humanitarian efforts I’ve ever seen because it was an example of individuals doing something that governments couldn’t or wouldn’t do,” Kantor said.
She thought the story was a model of a solution for a desperate and difficult-to-solve crisis.
“I hope it opened people’s eyes,” Kantor said.
Though it was widely read, it hasn’t produced visible action. Kantor remarked that the role of a journalist is to inform the public and hope they read and listen.
“You’ll never know who’s read your story and what it’s inspired them to do or change,” she said.
Kantor, like many people in the journalism world, felt overwhelmed by the number of possible investigations and large-scale stories when Trump took office.
“How in the world am I ever going to be equal to this moment? How can I do a story that actually matters?” Kantor said she asked herself then. ”Because I’ve got this precious seat at The New York Times at a time when journalism is under siege, and what am I going to use this for?”
Her advice is to new reporters entering the field during this time is simple — take the most substantive reporting job you can get, keep producing work and try out different media.
“You want to be in a place that will give you interesting opportunities and good advice,” Kantor said.
By using tried-and-true investigative tactics, determining how to best use her voice in different cultural moments and looking through the lens of gender inequality, Jodi Kantor has produced work with lasting impact. She hopes that through reading the book or one of her stories, people will be inspired to investigate and inform the world around them.