Ronan Farrow

Ronan Farrow left a career in government to delve into a career in journalism, which resulted in high-profile television assignments and a story for The New Yorker about sexual misconduct in Hollywood that sparked international debate about workplace behavior, sexual appropriateness and changing mindsets about gender equality. Born Satchel Ronan O'Sullivan Farrow in New York City, New York, he was the son of actor-writer-director Woody Allen and actress Mia Farrow. Even with such celebrated parentage, he was a unique child, enrolling at Bard College at Simon's Rock at 11 years of age and graduating from Bard College four years later before enrolling at Yale at the age of 16. His career goals initially lay with government and social welfare: after serving as a UNICEF spokesperson for Youth, he traveled to Darfur and spoke on behalf of the region's refugees. While at Yale, he interned at the office of the chief counsel at the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs before serving in President Barack Obama's administration as Special Adviser for Humanitarian and Nongovernmental (NGO) Affairs in the Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009. Two years later, he worked under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as Special Adviser for Global Youth Issues and Director of the State Department's Office of Global Youth Issues, overseeing US youth policies and programming, before departing government for a doctorate in international development at Magdalen College in Oxford. Farrow did not complete his studies, but instead focused on writing essays and features for magazines and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times and Foreign Policy. A book, Pandora's Box: How American Military Aid Creates America's Enemies, was published in 2013, while his first television news program, "Ronan Farrow Daily" (MSNBC), aired from 2014 to 2015. Farrow followed this with "Undercover with Ronan Farrow," a segment on "Today" (NBC, 1952-), but his watershed moment would occur two years later with the publication of an investigative piece in The New Yorker about allegations of sexual misconduct by producer Harvey Weinstein. The piece, issued in late 2017, was initially intended for NBC News, which decided against airing it; upon its publication, Farrow's investigation led to not only the end of Weinstein's career in Hollywood, but a barrage of similar allegations involving improprieties against such media figures as Matt Lauer and journalists Charlie Rose and Mark Halperin, and a spark that led to national debate and in turn, the dawn of the #MeToo movement . The piece also helped to broker a three-year contract with HBO for a series of documentary programs.