The end result: Kudos at the studio and an email to Dowd after it published saying, “you’re amazing.”
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd speaks during a taping of "Meet the Press" at the NBC studios.
Getty Images for Meet the Press Alex Wong
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd promised to show Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal's husband Bernard Weinraub — a former Times reporter — a version of a column featuring Pascal before publication.
The end result was a column that painted Pascal in such a good light that she engaged in a round of mutual adulation with Dowd over email after its publication. It also scored Pascal points back at the studio, with Sony's then-communications chief calling the column "impressive."
The exchanges were uncovered in a trove of Pascal's emails released as part of a massive hack on Sony carried out by the group known as "Guardians of Peace."
The column, published after the Academy Awards earlier this year, lamented how "Oscar voters and industry top brass are still overwhelmingly white, male and middle-aged."
Dowd quoted Pascal as saying women received "paltry" salaries compared to men in Hollywood. Pascal, according to leaked salary data from the hack, is tied for the highest earning executive at Sony Pictures with Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton. Pascal also told Dowd that women directors face an "unconscious mountain" of rejection.
It highlighted Pascal's role in greenlighting movies by female directors Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers, but also other Sony movies like The Social Network and American Hustle that had "impressed the guys in the boardroom," Dowd wrote.
Pascal told Dowd there had been "a gigantic change" in 2013 thanks to female-fronted films like Gravity, Hunger Games, Frozen, and The Heat earning a combined $4 billion. Pascal also said that the problems between men and women in Hollywood are "completly unconscious" and that "Women have to help each other more. It's our duty."
Dowd, Pascal, and Weinraub are friendly, the emails show — Dowd would send Pascal links to New York Times stories and bought birthday presents for Pascal and Weinraub's teenage son.
It turns out that the way Pascal's viewpoint was presented was exactly how she and her husband, Weinraub, wanted it.
Dowd did not respond to requests for comment from BuzzFeed News. In an email Thursday, Weinraub said: "I have no idea what you're talking about."
But the leaked documents show that when Dowd emailed Pascal on March 3 for the column — which would run online the next night and in print on March 5 — Dowd told Pascal "i would make sure you look great and we'd check it all and do it properly."
Before Pascal actually interviewed Dowd for the column, she talked to Weinraub.
"I said the rap that you jus like to make womens films is unfair amnd sexist," Weinraub said in an email to Pascal on March 4. "You made all these "women's movies ===league of their own, 28 days,,,the nora Ephron films...zero dark.... but you also do spifderman... denzel....Jonah hill.....bad teacher etc etc."
Pascal responded, "IM NOT TALKING TO HER IF SHE IS GONNA SLAM ME. PLEASE FIND OUT."
Weinraub assured her, "you cant tell single person that I'm seeing the column before its printed...its not done...no p.r. people or Lynton or anyone should know."
After the column was published later that night, Pascal emailed Dowd, saying "I THOUGHT THE STORY WAS GREAT I HOPE YOUR HAPPY "
Dowd responded: "I hope you're happy! Thanks for helping. Let's do another." Pascal replied, "Your my favorite person so yes" and Dowd finished the conversation with "you're mine! you're amazing"
About 10 minutes later, Sony's then-communications head Charles Sipkins forwarded the column to Pascal and Lynton, saying "this is impressive."
This isn't the first time one of Dowd's columns has been leaked — in 2012, Times intelligence reporter Mark Mazetti fowarded an advance copy of a column Dowd wrote about Zero Dark Thirty to then-Central Intelligence Agency spokeswoman Marie Harf. Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy described it as "a mistake that is not consistent with New York Times standards."
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