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I can say every report about CBS toxic work environment is true, the October 2018 email to The New York Times tip line read. This case enrages me so much, and it breaks my heart to look behind the curtain and see the ugliness and moral bankruptcy of institutions and people I admired since childhood.

The case was that of CBS chairman and chief executive Leslie Moonves. Moonves had resigned just a month earlier, the same day The New Yorker published the second of two articles detailing the accounts of twelve women accusing him of unwanted sexual advances. CBS had launched an internal investigation to determine, among other issues, whether Moonves should receive $120 million in severance pay.

In many ways Moonvess sudden departure had been only the beginning of the story. At the Times, the two of usmedia reporter Rachel Abrams and business columnist James B. Stewartwere separately pursuing different angles. Rachel, whod contributed to Jodi Kantor and Megan Twoheys Pulitzer Prizewinning coverage of movie executive Harvey Weinstein, was focusing on the CBS internal investigation. Was the company really trying to get to the bottom of what had happened, oras with so many self-directed corporate investigationswas it trying to sweep the scandal under the rug and protect other powerful interests? James was exploring the inner workings of the CBS board and how it had handled the accusations against its chief executive.

After the email landed in the Timess tip jar, a screener forwarded it to Jim Windolf, the Timess media editor. He in turn sent it to Rachel. She was heading out that day when she passed James at his desk in the Timess third-floor newsroom. They barely knew each other, but Rachel paused because shed heard he, too, was looking into Moonves and CBS. She described the email, and he was excited: the source sounded like someone who could both confirm and expand upon what he was hearing from other people, which was that the real reasons for Moonvess departure had been far more intriguing than reported and had even involved an attempt at extortion.

Rachel spoke to the source that evening. Her impression was that the sources motive for reaching out and putting a career at risk was altruistic: having closely followed the #MeToo movement, this person didnt want to see men get away with abusing their power by exploiting women and then covering it up. Rachel felt the source was equally interested in the structures that enabled such behaviorin this case a public corporation. She was confident the source had no allegiance to any of the warring factions at CBS.

This source became one of a number of people who turned over hundreds of pages of original materialemails, texts, interview notes, internal reportsdocumenting an astonishing saga of sex, lies, and betrayal at the highest levels of a major corporation.

At CBS, the #MeToo movement had collided explosively with the corporate boardroom. Moonves was the first chief executive of a major publicly traded company forced to resign for predatory sexual conduct. (The much smaller Weinstein Company was privately owned.)

And Moonves wasnt just any chief executive. As a leading media and entertainment company with a vaunted news division, CBS had an outsize influence on American politics and culture. Under Moonvess leadership, the CBS network had gone from last to first place in the ratings and stayed there for over ten years. CBS stock had more than doubled in price. The Hollywood Reporter named Moonves the most powerful person in entertainment. He had earned over $700 million during his tenure, making him one of the highest-paid chief executives in the country.

For all his power and influence, Moonves still reported to a board of directors with the power to hire, fire, or otherwise discipline or reward him. At CBS, members of the board included a former secretary of defense, a former head of the NAACP, the former dean of Harvard Law School, and an Academy Awardwinning film producer. But they could be replaced by a controlling shareholder that exercised 80 percent of the shareholders voting rights.