I came to college with aspirations of being an investigative reporter at The Boston Globe — I know, it is very cliche and typical, but I was 17 years old, so give me a break. I had even done an investigative reporting summer workshop at Boston University when I was still in high school.
Studying journalism at BU was my dream, and I was so excited to pursue it when I arrived in the Fall of 2017.
Journalism is not an easy career to pursue, though. My professors warned me there were many obstacles that came with the job — such as long hours and low pay — and I was very aware of these facts.
One thing I did not realize, however, is how long journalism had been a white man’s job, and how that still has an impact on the diversity of the field today.
The most recent example of inequalities in the newsroom came out last week, when it was discovered that a female reporter was banned from covering sexual assault at The Washington Post because she had spoken openly about her experience with sexual assault on social media.
When I first read this article, I was in disbelief and thought I was reading something incorrectly. It could not be possible that a woman was facing consequences in her career because she spoke freely about personal trauma, especially not at a publication that I had always respected and enjoyed reading.
But to my horror, I realized it was true. She was forbidden to write about multiple history-making moments such as Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who posted a livestream where she admitted to being a sexual assault survivor.
Any journalist knows that being unable to cover such groundbreaking events is heartbreaking — we are all just trying to find the next great story we’re passionate about. While you may think journalists are robots who are not allowed to have any emotion, the entire job is driven by passion and a thirst to tell a story the correct way.
I do not think life experience takes away this ability. It might make us more passionate about specific topics, but that is part of being a human. Journalism without humanity would never be able to properly capture the tragic or beautiful moments of a story that keep our readers so captivated.
Of course, we must prioritize telling all sides of a story and making sure our readers are as informed as possible. Getting all of the details and writing an objective story is not limited by our own human emotions and lived experiences — any good journalist knows this.
Furthermore, if we penalize women for being sexual assault survivors, then most female journalists would not be allowed to write on the topic.
Ninety-seven percent of women aged 18-24 experienced sexual harassment in public places in the United Kingdom, according to a study from March. For all ages, the number is higher than 70%.
With numbers like that, you have to assume almost every woman you come into contact with has been sexually harassed or maybe even assaulted. Are we going to prohibit all female journalists from covering a topic because they are affected by it? That would be one way to ensure the reporting is skewed away from fairness.
If we leave out the people being affected by the issue we are discussing, then we lose their specific and valuable perspective. Survivors of sexual assault might be better suited to cover the topic because maybe they may know the right and wrong questions to ask and they could better understand a victim’s point of view.
We are already working a job that is more dangerous for us simply because of our gender. In 40 out of 112 surveyed countries, journalism is more “dangerous” or “very dangerous” for women than it is for men, according to a recent report from Reporters Without Borders called “Sexism’s Toll on Journalism.”
Do not further alienate us because we have been victims of mistreatment and abuse. Silencing female journalists will never be the solution and it is despicable that The Washington Post even entertained the idea of doing just that.
