Apr 18, 2018
The Shitty Media Men List Is the #MeToo of Toxic Newsrooms
A new academic paper discusses how Shitty Media Men impact non-male freelance workers.
Last October, I drank my morning coffee while skimming through several Facebook posts about a list—or “the list” as my writer’s groups referred to it—asking where to fit it.
“The list” was the Shitty Media Men list, created by (at the time, anonymously, but identified herself in a New York Magazine essay months later) Moira Donegan. In an open-sourced Google sheet, names were named and their offenses were documented. Most of these names were reported by women working in newsrooms alongside them, as staff.
So it got me thinking. Where do I fit into this as a freelancer, who recognizes some of these names all too well? The question sparked an essay—“The Shitty Media Men List Is the #MeToo of Toxic Newsrooms”—which was later accepted to an academic journal, the journal of Feminist Media Studies.
I was recently interviewed by Chicago-based freelance journalist Tatiana Walk-Morris, who runs the blog, the Freelance Beat. I talk about my article as well as some tangible actions editors and those with executive power in newsrooms can take right now.
Read more in my interview on the Freelance Beat.
For an excerpt of the paper and its references, visit Feminist Media Studies on Taylor and Francis Online. For full access to the entire paper, contact your local library about their periodicals collection or request the article via InterLibrary Loan.
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