Author: Anita Sthankiya
A cultural shift is taking place around the world, and it’s happening on our television screens and in our daily conversations. It’s the Me Too movement, a viral two-word hashtag that spread in October 2017 on social media to help demonstrate the rampant prevalence of sexual assault and harassment towards women in society, specifically in the workplace. The movement came shortly after the public revelations of sexual misconduct allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein.
The phrase was popularized by actress Alyssa Milano after she encouraged women to tweet personal experiences and grievances, as a means of illustrating the magnitude of the inherent problem. Since then, the hashtag has been posted online millions of times and is often accompanied by a personal story of sexual harassment or assault.
While many women have spoken out using the hashtag, one story in particular has garnered a lot of public attention after making headlines. The main point of contention being whether or not a 23-year-old woman’s personal experience constitutes as sexual assault.
At the beginning of January, a 3,000-word-article was published on the website Babe.net, detailing an encounter between a woman named Grace (her real name was not used) and comedian Aziz Ansari. Right from the headline — “I went on a date with Aziz Ansari. It turned into the worst night of my life” — the reader is primed for an expose on Ansari. The article then begins by outlining the events leading up to the alleged sexual assault, starting from their initial encounter at the 2017 Emmys after party. After bonding over cameras and photography, they exchanged numbers and arranged a date in Manhattan.
The article goes on to describe Grace’s excitement for her date with Ansari, and then segues into her perception of the evening. According to Babe.net, she drank wine and made small talk with Ansari before going out for dinner. She describes Ansari’s behaviour as “eager to get back to his place.”
Fast forward to the end of the date, Grace depicts her encounter with Ansari at his apartment as cringe-worthy. She said that sexual activity took place, but that she presented non-verbal and verbal cues to Ansari that she was uncomfortable. Cues that Grace felt were ignored.
According to the article, Grace explicitly told Ansari that they would not be having sex, in which Ansari responded with, “how about we just chill, but this time with our clothes on?”
They watched Seinfeld, during which time Grace said the encounter that just played out between the two of them sunk in.
“It really hit me that I was violated. I felt really emotional all at once when we sat down there. That the whole experience was actually horrible,” read the article.
Eventually, Grace went home in an Uber, crying while texting her friends the details of her encounter with Ansari.
After the article hit the internet, it was considered different from those that have surfaced since the Weinstein allegations. For one example, it wasn’t the result of a workplace incident, as some many other stories including celebrities have entailed. Just days after being published, the article garnered more than 2.5 million views. Some found it to be relatable, as it drew parallels to a common problem that many women face while on dates. Vox.com reporter Anna North alludes to this subject matter in her response to the Babe.net piece: the article “reveals our broken attitudes toward sex.” More on that point, North reiterated that the article touches on a gendered pattern of behavior that is incredibly common and deeply rooted in our society.
Meanwhile, other outlets, such as the New York Times, found the article to be irresponsible. In fact, many journalists, New York Times based and otherwise, questioned the way Babe decided to bring this story to light.
The material in the Babe article points to Ansari’s work and fictional characters, often comparing him to personas he portrays on screen. Grace herself said she implicitly trusted Ansari that night because she thought she knew who he was through his comedy. Ansari is known for his feminist approach, specifically from his work to counteract sexist stereotypes, and his efforts to integrate these ideas into his work. Seeing as how the article portrayed Ansari, some media outlets have argued that piece works to catch a supposedly “feminist” man in the act of treating a woman badly.
What it comes down to is that there’s no question that Grace’s encounter with Ansari made her feel uncomfortable; nobody was questioning how she felt. What people were questioning was how the story was handled and the level of journalism executed by Babe.
According to editor-in-chief of Tab Media, the parent company of Babe, Joshi Herrmann said the editorial team has no regrets about publishing the story. Herrmann said Babe sought out Grace, and that the story was published the same week it was fact-checked. According to editor Amanda Ross, they gave Ansari less than six hours on the Saturday of a holiday weekend to respond to the allegations. According to the Society of Professional Journalists, the journalistic standard is at least 24 hours.
The mainstream media called the story rushed, suggesting that Babe decided to publish it based on a single version of the story, as a means of indicting a celebrity known for not only being a feminist, but also an active voice in the Time’s Up movement.
The Washington Post called the piece “a gift to anyone who wants to derail #MeToo,” saying that the encounter wasn’t sexual assault or anything close to it by most legal standards.
Meanwhile, The Guardian wrote a poignant article by calling it a missed opportunity, while also addressing the larger issue of how to deal with an uncomfortable dating situation when faced with one.
“It was only a matter of time before a publication did us the disservice of publishing a sensational story of a badly behaved man who was nonetheless not a sexual assailant,” said Guardian reporter Jill Filipovic in her response to the Babe article.
Filipovic pointed out that stories like the one on Babe should be told, but not jammed into a pre-existing movement grounded in assault and illegality. The story was told because there was a celebrity name attached to it, not because he broke the law or leveraged his power. It left the reader wondering if Ansari was a sexual assailant because of the way the piece was reported.
The report included a personal essay with editorial comments inappropriately interjected — “‘She settled on ‘a tank-top dress and jeans.’ She showed me a picture [said Babe reporter Katie Way], it was a good outfit.”
Arguably more important, however, is that the article elicits a trial by public opinion (rather than fact) mentality. In this light, it can be argued that journalist integrity was missing from this article and that care wasn’t taken to handle the sensitive claims.
In the Guardian article, Filipovic suggested the editors at Babe could have looked at the bigger picture, delving into the confusing and often unpleasant flirtations that twenty-somethings often have during sexual encounters.
“Girls are raised with a contradictory set of expectations: be kind and acquiescent, but also be the brakes on male sexual desire. We are taught to reflexively say yes, except for when we’re supposed to definitively say no, but we don’t learn how to know when we want to say either,” explained Filipovic.
Babe’s piece is important, but the execution of the piece did a disservice to the topic. The article was one-sided, not thoroughly researched, and rang as more of an opinion piece than a in-depth journalistic report. More pointedly, it left room for unfounded assumptions, not fact-based decisions.
On the other hand, Babe’s article did highlight a massive flaw in journalism more generally: an inadequate system that is littered with issues when it comes to properly vetting and publishing news.
So the question must be asked, how would you have handled a story like the Aziz Ansari debacle? How do you expect your local journalists and media outlets to handle accusations of such a sensitive nature? As more and more men and women share their stories of sexual abuse or assault, journalists will need to adapt and perhaps change the way they handle stories. In the second part of this article, we will look at how this type of story would have been handled on a platform such as DNN, and if it would have been published.
About DNN
DNN is a news curation platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain. It’s our goal to encourage the dissemination of factual, unbiased political news by incentivizing accountability at all levels of the news consumption process. We’re news for the people, by the people.
Read our latest stories on the DNN Medium channel. Visit the DNN website to learn more about our project. Stay up-to-date with the latest project news by following our social channels: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can also join our project conversation on Slack, Telegram, and Reddit. Our DNN token presale is currently live. To participate, contact presale@dnn.media.
We’re currently in need of journalists, writers, readers, and editors to test out our Alpha updates! Check out our website today, and let us know what you think. Participating in our Alpha will earn you bounty stakes for our DNN Token.
