Arts & Entertainment
Ronan Farrow on Journalism, Diplomacy and New Project ‘Not a Very Good Murderer’
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ronan Farrow has uncovered stories of sexual harassment and assault, chronicled the decline of America’s soft power and explored how powerful people try to track and manipulate journalists.
That work has taken the form of magazine articles, books, documentaries and podcasts; as Farrow joked while visiting Chicago to discuss his latest project, “it’s very Moira Rose from ‘Schitt’s Creek’ — I’ll do it all.”
His new podcast, “Not a Very Good Murderer,” defies easy categorization. And like the off-the-wall TV matriarch Moira, the subject at the heart of the podcast can seem a little … out there.
A former pageant queen now living in luxury in suburban Phoenix, CeCe Doane first came to Farrow’s attention when she accused a prominent politician of sexual assault. As Farrow dove into her complicated backstory, he learned that she was accused of plotting the death of not one, but two husbands. And the story hardly stops there.
“It is a series of true crime mysteries where I stumble into these cold cases and have to crack them,” Farrow told WTTW News. “It is a character portrait of a really difficult, complicated person who is problematic in some ways and lovable in other ways. … It’s also something of an anatomy of a certain kind of voter imbibing a certain kind of disinformation. There’s no one like CeCe. She’s a one-of-a-kind person, and deciphering what makes her tick is a big part of this series.”
With the genesis of the project in Farrow’s efforts to vet Doane as a source, he said it was important to shine a light on the lengthy, in-depth work that goes into investigative stories.
“We’re in a moment where there are so many forces arrayed against journalism,” Farrow said. “There’s an economic model that is in doubt. There’s political headwinds, … and there’s major legacy news institutions who are bending the knee a bit.”
Farrow has reported for years on sexual abuse, including in a recent New Yorker piece on a serial rapist whose predation was essentially an open secret.
“I suppose if I have a beat, it’s … identifying systemic injustices and trying to put a spotlight on them,” Farrow said.
He also has a background both working in and covering U.S. foreign policy and the role of diplomacy.
“The United States is in the throes of a surge of fascism and authoritarian tendencies,” he said, “and an effort to not only dismantle a lot of basic rights and freedoms and aspects of the rule of law domestically, but also to transition … in a direction of more of a bullying, high-handed role with an absence of either soft power or diplomacy.”
As for his new podcast, Farrow said its main subject didn’t much care for it.
“She called one of the producers on the project and threatened to ‘come and kill all of you with my bare hands,’ I believe was the quote,” Farrow said.
But he has been heartened by the kinds of responses he’s gotten from audience members: “I see my mother in this character. I see someone in my family, someone at my Thanksgiving dinner table in this series. A lot of people have written in to say that it’s helped them cope with dynamics of abuse and addiction and mental health issues in their families.”
Contact Nick Blumberg: [email protected] | (773) 509-5434 | @ndblumberg
