Sarah Berman graduated from the journalism master’s program in 2010. Since then, Berman’s determination and freelancing chops have landed her multiple gigs with independent and alternative media organizations. She’s contributed to VICE, The Tyee, Maclean’s, the Globe and Mail, and Reuters. Her upcoming book Don’t Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM investigates how dozens of women were victimized by a secret scheme that compelled naked photos and other blackmail material under the guise of women’s empowerment coaching in Albany, New York. The group’s founder was convicted of sex trafficking, racketeering, and sexually exploiting a teenager in 2019.
Can you tell us a bit about your current role?
I was an associate editor at The Tyee and West Coast news reporter at VICE Canada, both based out of Vancouver. I then became a full time senior editor at VICE and worked with them for over four years, and in mid-2020, decided to depart from there. And so, my role currently has been dedicated to full-time investigation projects. So the NXIVM case, the Meng Wanzhou extradition case, and I have a few other long-term projects that I’ve been cooking up in the meantime.
Can you tell us something about your upcoming book ‘Don’t Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM’ and the process of investigating it?
I learned that NXIVM was blackmailing and branding women the same way a lot of people did, from reading the New York Times. But I learned pretty early on that this group was operating on the edges of my social circle in Vancouver. After my first story for VICE, I started getting lots of people reaching out to me saying they had NXIVM experiences. I had a couple of friends who went to high school with Nicki Clyne, for example. She went to school in Richmond and remains loyal to Keith Raniere to this day. That’s where the research began and the inevitable obsession that came with it. I’ve been on that case for as long as it’s been going on. It’s been a lot of years, a lot of sweat and tears. There’s still a lot to report on this case—some of the women are still awaiting sentencing—but hopefully this book release will be at least one type of endpoint.
How different is it to investigate, keeping in mind that you’re writing a book, as compared to investigating from a newsroom?
Well, I’ve always had my newsroom at home. Even when I was a senior editor, I was working mostly from home or had a desk in a shared office. VICE definitely prioritized the NXIVM story in the early days, so I got to spend a lot of on-the-clock time with it. NXIVM had many elements that VICE readers are interested in—issues like radicalization, spirituality, and alternative lifestyles.
It wasn’t until publishers actually started reaching out to me that I decided to write a proposal about it with early support from editors at VICE. It was a balancing act, trying to take time off for the book here and there while working full-time. For a long-term project, you need to immerse yourself. I spent full days and weeks just reading transcripts and court records, which you can’t do when you’ve got daily deadlines to meet. Which is part of why I decided to leave VICE in summer 2020, to dedicate all my focus to one thing at a time.
What would be some of the takeaways from the book?
I hope that one of the takeaways people get from the book is that our minds and our decisions are influenced every day by the people around us. Our immediate circle of family and friends inform all of our decisions. In the case of NXIVM, it was a coordinated and closed system of influence that had seemingly outrageous effects. There are lessons to extract from that, about how our societies work, how our societies have been fragmented, and, therefore exposed to these kinds of unseen vulnerabilities.
Is there something from J-School that you’ve carried with you even today?
I definitely learned a lot just from my peers. The best part of the program for me was having peers who would look out for me, who would recommend me to their editors. Because once you have that, the work does start to speak for itself. That’s what I’ve carried with me from J-school—being part of a community of students who helped each other.
Any words of wisdom for aspiring investigative journalists?
Sometimes I do kind of wonder where I’d be at if I got into court documents sooner. Over the last four or five years, I started getting into ordering transcripts and court files, and really trying to build out stories from documentation, as opposed to always relying on interviews. And that’s been extremely helpful in the case of NXIVM, especially because there are so many lawsuits attached. In addition to the criminal case, there were several civil lawsuits that were huge sources of material. People were called for depositions which meant they were under oath and describing exactly what was happening at the time. So I would say, develop an interest in documents. If that speaks to you, if you love reading hundreds and hundreds of pages of transcripts, get into it now, because it only gets richer, the better you get at deciphering what’s going on.
