Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [209]
“I wanted people to be able to talk freely,” Coady said. “No one will talk at Harpo. People are afraid for their careers. I didn’t want them to fear Oprah coming after them.” Coady characterized Harpo as “a very cynical and narcissistic place,” and said that Oprah fed off the narcissism.
“Oprah doesn’t believe what she says. Everything she says is intended to promote herself, not her female fans. She loves that they worship her and she believes they do so rightfully.… There’s no sense of justice inside [Harpo], which is ironic in light of the public image of someone who touts herself as an advocate for business ethics and spirituality. This is not a spiritual place.”
Describing Oprah as a master manipulator of the media, Coady said that her immense influence within ABC, Viacom (which owned CBS and King World), the Walt Disney Company, Hearst, and Oxygen immunized her against criticism and prevented anyone from stepping forward to reveal the “intrigue and deception” in her workplace. Oprah realized that a book such as Coady’s threatened to strip the bark off her carefully constructed public image while making her words during the “mad cow” trial look hypocritical when she said: “This is America. People are allowed to say things we don’t like.”
“There is an audience for a book [like mine],” said Coady, “but [Oprah] has a stranglehold on the publishing industry because of the popularity of her book club.” The writer did acknowledge the good that Oprah had done and said she saw people whose lives had been positively affected by her. “She gives a lot of people the belief that there’s some magic in the world.” Yet, overall, Coady felt that Oprah held sway over her gullible audience because of her “constant references to a higher power and her pandering to stay-at-home moms.”
Elizabeth Coady never got the chance to write her book because the Illinois Appellate Court ruled against her and upheld Oprah’s confidentiality agreement as “reasonable and enforceable.” The court made its decision based on contract law, which left Coady, a free speech advocate, asking, “Why does a woman with unprecedented influence over so many communication companies have to silence her employees? Why does a woman who has made her millions telling people’s stories deserve this level of protection from the courts?”
Scores of producers flocked to Harpo to work for Oprah, leaving network jobs in New York City to relocate to Chicago because, as one former employee said, “Her salaries are terrific.” In a confidential interview another said, “As much as the money, I signed on because I believed in her message—to do uplifting television. I thought I would be working for the warm and fuzzy person I saw on television. But, God, was I conned.… It’s a cult at Harpo. So oppressive it’s frightening … Oprah is ruthless about protecting her brand and she’s so concerned—obsessed, really—about who she hires that she has Kroll Associates [worldwide detective agency] vet every potential employee, including a review of their financials. She’s worried about moles in her company who might talk to the press about what goes on, and that would definitely damage her image. If you pass Kroll, you are put on one month’s probation and in that thirty-day period you are watched by the Harpo elders—the ones who long ago drank the Kool-Aid. If you disagree with a proposed show or express doubt about production values or story ideas, you’re viewed as a possible troublemaker.… I got