Study Hall Digest 10/16/2017

Hi

I don’t think this is really how Venn diagrams work but this is basically how I feel about all these harassment and assault stories right now.

As Katie McDonough pointed out at Splinter, these last few weeks were probably inevitable because we don’t have adequate systems for dealing with sexual assault and harassment in media (or really in any industry). Women and femmes are frequently told they’re wrong, or that they should empathize with their abusers, or that they are making a big deal out of nothing. And if they are believed, action taken by companies is rarely enough. That’s doubly true for freelancers—what process even is there for a freelancer being harassed by an editor at a media company? What sucks about this, as many women and femmes and non-binary people have said, is that we’re still using survivors’ stories and trauma as currency to get people to believe the depth of this crisis, yet men are not really being made accountable, so it’s unclear to me whether any of this will change anything, which fuckin sucks. I think it’s tempting as journalists and media workers to believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant, but obviously naming and shaming is not enough. No matter how many #metoo stories come out, there won’t be the necessary structural change in our industry unless it is demanded and fought for. Unions are a good place to start but unions often grapple with the same men-induced problems as everywhere else, so…IDK.

Here’s Jodi Kantor talking about how she reported and wrote the Harvey Weinstein story.

In other news, The New York Times released social media guidelines for its employees that make it clear that The New York Times is stuck in like…2006. Don’t know when (if ever) the news media will learn that “no partisan opinions” is just a nice way of saying “be conservative and don’t challenge Nazis.”

RIP to Daphne Caruana Galizia, a journalist who revealed corruption throughout Europe by digging into the Panama Papers. She received death threats in recent weeks, and then was the victim of a car bomb attack near her home in Malta.

Complex is laying off people and pivoting to video lol. Meanwhile I’ve heard things are not going well at Mic, which recently pivoted to video. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Calling white people assholes on Facebook is hate speech, even though it’s objectively true!!!

Salon, wyd????