Aziz Ansari, #MeToo, and the Media

What allegations against comedian Aziz Ansari means for #MeToo.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Bridget and this assembly, and you're listening
the stuff mom never told you. Today, like many of
our episodes, we have a pretty big sugar warning. We're
gonna be discussing Asease I'm sorry, me too, and the

(00:27):
recent allegations of sexual misconduct against him. So if that's
something that's tough for you to listen to, just know
that's what today's episode is all about. Now. You may
have noticed earlier this week Babe dot Net, an online outlet,
published new allegations against comedian Disease I'm sorry, basically accusing
him of sexual misconduct towards a twenty three year old photographer.

(00:49):
They're calling Grace a pseudonym during a date. And if
you've tweeted with me at all this week, you know
that I didn't want to touch this subject with a
ten football, but y'all have demanded it, and we decided, really, Bridget,
you took the lead on this that with great podcasting
comes great responsibility. So we are waiting in to the

(01:12):
firestorm that followed that Babe dot net publication. It was
such a firestorm. I've seen debates all over social media. Honestly,
it's been kind of surprising. The amount of fervent takes
I've seen surrounding this one allegation. Yeah, there's been a
lot of vitriol spewed back and forth, a lot of

(01:33):
people basically coming to a Zesus defense, saying that Grace
was wrong to bring this up to begin with by
ruining his career. I mean, there's been a lot of
women arguing over whether or not this warranted the kind
of expose that it got, and whether, at the end
of the day, the publication was at fault for really

(01:55):
exploiting Grace's story because there was a celebrity name attached,
and what really means for the hashtag me too movement exactly.
So let's back up and break down exactly what's going
on here. On January, Babe dot Net reporter Katie Way
published this viral story accusing a Zise a sexual misconduct
during a September twenties seventeen date with Grace. In this piece,

(02:16):
Grace describes this as quote the worst night of her life.
She says that as Zse moved her hand to his
penis after she moved it away several times, put his
fingers in her mouth after she physically moved away from him,
she writes, it was thirty minutes of me getting up
and moving and him following and sticking his fingers down
my throat again. It was really repetitive. It felt a game.

(02:36):
According to the article, she quote used verbal and non
verbal cues to indicate how uncomfortable and distressed she was,
even telling him quote, I don't want to feel forced,
because then I'll hate you, and I'd rather not hate you.
She felt pressured to give him oral sex. Quote. He
sat back and pointed to his penis in motion for
me to go down on him, and I did. I

(02:57):
think I just felt really pressured. It was literally the
most unexpected thing I thought would happen at that moment,
because I told him I was uncomfortable. After expressing her discomfort,
he multiple times bent her overrepressed his penis against her,
and asked her where do you want me to you?
And after he bent her over, she says, quote, I

(03:17):
stood up and said, no, I don't think I'm ready
to do this. I really don't think I'm going to
do this, And he said, how about we just chill,
but this time with our clothes on. So was this
sort of back in forth game. It felt like being chased.
That's definitely how Grace describes it in this piece. The
next day, she says that he texted her saying, hey,
it was nice to meet you, and she sent back,

(03:39):
last night might have been fun for you, but it
wasn't for me. You've ignored clear nonverbal cues. You kept
going with advances. You had to have noticed I was uncomfortable.
I want to make sure you're aware, so maybe the
next girl doesn't have to cry. On the ride home.
After getting this text, he replied with an apology. And honestly,
I think we've all had dates like this, and that

(03:59):
was what was so I mean, beyond the celebrity name attached.
I think that was what was so interesting about this
piece that triggered a lot of women out there and
and triggered a lot of people out there, is that
we can all point to a time when we've been pursued,
and a lot of men say, well, this is how,
this is how you're supposed to have sex, like you're
supposed to pursue people doggedly. And I think that relatability

(04:22):
struck me. But it also made a lot of women
who spoke out against Grace feel like Grace get over yourself.
Everybody has bad dates. Yeah. I was struck by this
tweet by Sadie Doyle. She says, one thing I can
say is that even men I trust and like have
told me that they were socialized to believe that if
a woman says no, you should test that boundary to

(04:43):
make sure she really means it. That ideology lays the
groundwork for this four hour just checking kind of assault.
And so the question really is is this a bad date?
Is this something that we should all be expected to
endure with dating and having sex? Is it sex all assault?
Is it a sex crime? I think that her her
story really raises all these kinds of questions, which are valid.

(05:08):
So back to Grace's story, Grace says that it was
her friends that helped her see what she had previously
thought of as just a bad date or a night
gone bad, as sexual assault. In the piece they write,
Grace says her friends helped her grapple with the aftermath
of her night with disease. It took a really long
time for me to validate this a sexual thought, she
told us. I was debating it as an awkward sexual

(05:28):
experience or sexual assault, and that's why I confronted so
many of my friends and listened to what they had
to say because I wanted the validation that was actually
not that bad. And this was all made more complicated
on last Sunday when A zse I'm Sorry was up
there at the Golden Globe speaking with his time's uppin.
And the fact of the matter is, as these on,
Sorry has a long public history of being an outspoken feminist.

(05:54):
His book was one of my favorite reads a couple
of years ago, and I stand by that. I thought
his body of work on that was excellent. It talked
about the challenges and confusing landscape of dating in the
modern era, and honestly, hearing this story about him knowing
his body of work when it comes to his show
Master of None, when it comes to his stand up

(06:16):
pretty much centered on the quirks of dating today, it
is not surprising that someone who has been outspokenly clueless
about how to engage with women in a respectful way
had an experience like this in which he unknowingly and
perhaps unintentionally victimized this woman on what he thought was

(06:39):
of normal first date, which was far from it. So
what you just described about his body of work is
exactly what Grace says compelled her to come forward with
this story. She says watching him on the Golden Globe
stage wearing a Time's Up pin, getting an award for
a show that really centers him as a good guy
feminist ally is what made her want to come for word.

(07:00):
And to be clear, on Master of None, he does
deal with issues of sexual harassment, sexual assault, gender power dynamics,
and he does set himself up as a kind of
feminist ally and spoiler alert if you haven't seen Master
of None and don't want a plot point for that
show spoiled for you, I'm going to talk about it.
One of the plot points in season two is that

(07:21):
Disease is forced to stand up to his boss on
a cooking television show because his boss has been outed
as a serial sexual harasser. People on our crew have
come to me and said, you've been inappropriate with them.
What people? What are you talking? Women? Years? So you're
telling me none of this happened, None of this happened.
I don't know, man, Sorry for me to buy I mean,
why are these people make it up? What do you mean? Why? Naive? Okay,

(07:46):
they want money? So you can really see how we
all bought into the idea of disease as a good guy,
a nice guy, someone who is interested in talking about gender,
talking about dating, talking about sex, and doing so an
way that highlights gender and power discrepancies. And that's what's
hard about reconciling all of this is how can someone

(08:07):
who's so outspoken about his feminism have this kind of
protocol on a date, Like, how can there be such
a disconnect? And I also think that there's a lot
of people who think the date she described is perfectly
normal and expected, which is a whole other can of worms.
So after the Babe dot Net story published, Unsorry released

(08:29):
a statement in which he acknowledged that they had engaged
in sexual activity, which he said, quote by all indications,
was completely consensual, but acknowledged that when he heard it
wasn't that, you know, when he got that text from
her and realized it wasn't for her, he was quote
surprised and concerned. So that's what went down. When we

(08:50):
come back from this quick break, let's talk through the
myriad of responses that took the Internet by storm this
week after this quick word from our sponsors, and we're
back and we just talked through the basic fundamental facts

(09:11):
behind these new allegations that emerged this past week from
an anonymous woman who's calling herself grace against as these
I'm sorry now. The response to the baby Done Net
story is where the real story is on this front,
and what it says about the hashtag me to movement
is more interesting to me than the initial piece itself. Absolutely,

(09:33):
as you might imagine, critics were quick to respond to
this piece. Writing at The New York Times, Bari Weiss
wrote that the only thing I'm Sorry was guilty of
was quote not being a mind reader. She says, I'm
apparently the victim of sexual assault, and if you're a
sexually active woman in the twenty century, chances are you
are too. That is what I learned from the quote

(09:54):
expose of a z S I'm Sorry, published last weekend
by the feminist website Babe. Arguably the worst thing that
has happened in a Me Too movement since it began
in October. It transforms what ought to be a movement
for women's empowerment into an emblem for female helplessness. I
have the weirdest reaction to that piece, which is I
agree with almost everything that's been written about this, Like,

(10:19):
I read the pieces that say Grace was victimized, and
I'm nodding in agreement, like, yeah, that definitely was messed
up and that shouldn't have happened to her. And then
I read a piece like this from Weiss saying, you
know what, Grace, you had power. You had power in
this stance. You had power to leave, You had the
power to walk up. And the coercive actions that Harvey

(10:41):
Weinstein was using are not even comparable to the kind
of experience that you had on this date with his
views on Sorry, and I I think it's a very
gray area, but I understand this argument, and I can
I can empathize, maybe too much more than I'd like to,
because I'd like to obviously just champion Grace in this instance.

(11:03):
But this is not the same. This is not the
same use of power to coerce sexual activity from somebody.
It's just Grace should have spoken up. Grace, I wish
she had been in a position to use her voice
and say no and walk out and leave when it
wasn't being listened to. Well, that's pretty much what wife

(11:23):
says in this New York Times piece. She goes on
to say, I'm a proud feminist, and this is what
I thought while reading that article. If you're hanging out
naked with a man, it's safe to assume he's going
to try to have sex with you. It's the failure
to choose a Peno noir over a Pino griggio offends you.
You can leave right then and there. If you don't
like the way your date hustles through paying the check.
You can say I've had a lovely evening and I'm

(11:44):
going home now. If you go home with him to
discover he's a terrible kisser, say I'm out. If you
start to hook up and you don't like the way
he smells or the way he talks, or doesn't end it.
If you pressure you to do something you don't want
to do, use a four letter word, stand up on
your own two feet and walk out his door. And
I get it, and I want that to happen, and
I I want there to be more women who feel

(12:07):
empowered to do that, which is a huge part of
my entire career thus far. But I also remember what
it's like to be coerced into sex. I was grace.
I think we've all been in grace. Issues. I really
think it's a universal experience and that doesn't make it right.
I'm almost thinking of Amber Rose, notably the woman pioneering
the slut walk right, and she said in an interview

(12:31):
sitting on a couch with a talk show host, if
I am butt naked on your bed and I say no,
that means no. Like that alone should be listened to
and enthusiastic consent should be the baseline for sexual interactions
of all kinds. But unfortunately it isn't. It just isn't,

(12:52):
and we aren't necessarily raising our men or even adolescent
boys to understand that. So in the meantime, we women
have to have power to stand up and walk out
the door, because only you can protect your body in
that instance. I think that's definitely right. But I think
that critiques like wise is obscure the fact that there

(13:15):
is a power imbalance here. So even though this comedian
is not her boss, he's famous, he's older than her,
and I think that just highlighting the ways in which, yeah,
he wasn't pinning her down or restraining her or making
it so she couldn't get out of the door. But
keep in mind this is someone famous. Because I went
back to someone famous his apartment. We can't say that
our levels of power are the same, and so I

(13:36):
think what's always important is to keep in mind the
various levels of power. Who has power, who doesn't. And
I think in this situation, he has more power than her.
I'm not saying she's powerless, but I'm saying that might
explain why it might feel difficult to slap, you know,
slap him across the face, or to pretend like you're
enjoying it, or to you know, not immediately calling uber

(13:58):
and leave when things get tent. I know it's fraught.
I've been in the instance. I feel like we've all
been there, and I honestly feel like, as a young woman,
I didn't think I could do all of those things
about yet the basis is being assertive about your bodily autonomy.
But again, that's the whole trip, I think, is that
it's not a personal problem, it's a a wider cultural problem.

(14:20):
And so putting that all on Gray saying Grace, don't
you know that you can just kick him in the balls,
and we need if things got out of hand, why
pretend like we live in a culture that has been
feeding grace messages that that's okay. Look at our popular culture.
How many times in in movies that are builled as
comedies is the jokes supposed to be? Oh, the guys
violated the girl's consent because he was horny, and that's okay.

(14:43):
Isn't that funny? Why pretend like we've all been raised
in a society where it's totally cool for a woman
to loudly say no, I object to this on a
date without things getting weird. Yeah, well things will get weird.
That's the price we pay for not feeling like it
was the worst night of our lives. So we gotta
get comfortable with it getting weird. But more importantly, as
these should have known better, More importantly, men should know better,

(15:07):
Like this shouldn't be a position that so many of
us can relate to because it shouldn't happen. And I
wrote a long time ago on the website Roll Reboot
that we have to eliminate the thrill of the chase mentality,
that narrative that men are, you know, out for the
night to hunt women, that men have to catch prey,
that analogy that you have to sort of be a

(15:27):
hunter about how you're going to get women in bed
with you is so problematic for all of us. And
I think the problem with this narrative that spun out
of control following the Babe article is that it's not
clear cut her fault or his fault. I think the
question that's putting Grace on blast in a lot of
ways was her response of going public with this disproportionately putitive. Well,

(15:50):
if you ask Caitlin flannag And over at the Atlantic,
she would say absolutely yes. She actually classified the Babe
dot net piece as quote revenge porn. She it's Grace
wanted affection, kindness, attention. Perhaps she hoped to even become
this famous man's girlfriend. He wasn't interested. What she felt afterward,
rejected yet another time by yet another man was regret

(16:12):
and what she did and the writer who told her
story created was three thousand words of revenge porn. Yeah.
I don't even know. I don't know how to feel
about that. I don't know revenge porn is exactly what
this is. But that's the ultimate question here. I'm curious
to hear what our listeners think. I don't like this
narrative of comparing victimhoods between Grace and I'm sorry. I'm
uncomfortable with it too, and that's when I see this

(16:33):
narrative hifting so easily toward on headline news journalist Ashley
Banfield had an open letter to Grace, and here's what
she said. I'm sorry that you had a bad date.
I have had a few myself. They stink. I'm sure
it must be really weighing on you. Um, it's hard
being a victim, very painful. Just to ask anyone who's
been on that end of crime and justice, I covered

(16:54):
them every day. It's no picnic. But let's take a
moment to reflect on what you claim was the first
night of your life and quote, you had a bad date.
Your date got overly amorous. After protesting his moves, you
did not get up and leave right away. You continue
to engage in the sexual encounter. By your own clear description,

(17:16):
this was not a rape, nor was it a sexual assault.
Your sexual encounter was unpleasant. It did not send you
to the police. It did not affect your workplace or
your ability to get a job. So I have to
ask you what exactly was your beef. So there's a
lot going on in that clip. One thing I want
to point out is that I'm not super comfortable with

(17:38):
Banfield saying this is or is not sexual assault because
she wasn't there. I wasn't there, you weren't there. I
found it kind of surprising that she would go on
TV and emphatically declare what you've experienced was not sexual
a fault, it was a bad date. It sounds like
she could like asked a couple attorneys to say, just
based on this description, yeah, yea or nay sexual assault

(17:59):
and again like we have laws on the books, but
those laws are being proven either applicable or lacking in
court every day. Absolutely, And I also think could have
beyond that. I'm troubled by the idea that a journalist
on TV would give an a pointed open letter to
someone who anonymously came forward with a story where they

(18:22):
feel they were sexually abused or went through a sexual assault.
I think that sets a really weird precedent. Even if
you think, oh, this didn't happen, she's being vindictive, whatever, whatever,
I don't like the precedent that a journalist would go
on TV and had a very severe finger wagging session
to someone who believes they were the victim of a
traumatic crime. Yeah. Two things on that. One, I think

(18:44):
everyone went up ed crazy. I think that's what this
week has been about. And two, did you get the
sense of like feminist waves crashing because I got this, Oh,
you overly sensitive special snowflake millennials. You know, we second
wave feminists know what real struggle is like when it
comes to sexism at work, and basically you don't know

(19:06):
what real struggle is. However, there's a component to this
where if I were the victim of a rape, if
I were a sexual assault survivor, and I read her
story and she was conflating rape to her experience the
worst night of her life, I think part of what

(19:28):
Ashley Vanfield was actually doing there was standing up for
what she considers real victims, because I think a lot
of victims would read, you know, this woman's anonymous story
and say, you don't even have to deal with this
in your own identity. You haven't come forward with this.
This experience was bad, but you're claiming the mantle of

(19:50):
victimhood and it's a bit of a stretch. I mean
from the perspective of someone who is truly and more
severely victimized. I think Actuley deals with those stories every day.
You know, she came down and condemned this anonymous, delicious
report because it doesn't hold water compared to real struggle

(20:10):
that's out there. And I'm not saying that that's something
I necessarily agree with, but I understand where that sentiment
and where all that anger comes from. Yeah. Well, first
of all, Grace doesn't characterize what happened to her as
a rape. She does say that she feels that she
was sexually assaulted. But I think that even that line
of thinking that maybe understandable that I think Banfield is
probably getting caught up on that line of thinking that

(20:32):
says there are real victims and not real victims. I
don't like at all, because it's not a contest. And
I think that oftentimes for women, we feel the need
to talk about experiences that were traumatic for us in
a way that emphasizes that it wasn't that bad, or
that it wasn't really a rape, or in a way
that minimizes what they actually meant for us. And so

(20:54):
I think in terms of Grace's story, I think a
lot of folks will read that and they want to say, Oh,
that's not that bad, that's typical, that's how it is
because it makes our own trauma and our own struggles
feel more normal if you don't want to have to
talk about the fact that that bad date you went
on in college was actually a sexual assault. Reading Grace's
story where and she says I came to realize I

(21:15):
was assaulted, might be hard for you. You You might actually
be invested in her story not being a crime because
it's so common. And if it's so common, that means
I've been sexually assaulted, You've been sexually assaulted. We've all
been sexually assaulted. And maybe that's true, and maybe that
truth is really heavy. Yes, it's almost like this denial,
like I can't accept that she's a real victim, or

(21:37):
I would be accepting that I and all of my
friends are victims, and then I'm probably raising sexual predators
right now. And it kind of collapses the entire the
entire reality of gender dynamics and sexual dynamics and consent,
and it makes it so much more real. It makes
it so much more real because we're living it. We're
steeped in it, were bathed in it, we're breathing it in.

(21:57):
It's not just this thing that happens on the news
or that happens with famous guys will probably never meet
like Harvey Weinstein. It happens in dorm rooms, that happens
on dates. Maybe it's happened to you, Maybe it'll happen
to your daughter. We have, but where's the line. Isn't
there a line? Like? Is there a line somewhere? And
it's just I think the Me Too movement was bound.
This was bound to happen. Jill Philipovitch wrote a great

(22:19):
op ed in The Guardian saying that it was just
a matter of time until this movement was confronted with
its peripheral like when, at what point would there be
a story that pushed the envelope of she's gone too far,
she's overstating it. And that's the debate we're having right now.
I don't think Grace's story is it, but I think

(22:39):
she's coming close enough to the to the edges of
what we might consider assault to force a question upon
all of us, which is what is too much? See?
That's exactly why I think her story was so important,
because listen, I think the Me Too movement has room
for all of these stories. I think it's about stories
where it's your boss and it's clearly wrong, it's clearly

(22:59):
a crime. He's been a serial sexual harasser, and he's
intimidating you and making it so that you can't move
up in your career and keeping you silent and all
of that. I think that has obviously has a place
in the Me too movement, But I also think it's
about these other situations that maybe aren't so stark and
so black and white, where it's like, hey, if we're
all talking about these very clear sex crimes, cool, but

(23:21):
what about the fact that it's cool for a woman
to go over to a man's house and for her
to kind of express that she's not into it, and
for him to think it's fine to just keep pushing her.
Maybe it's not rape, maybe it's not win Stein, but
it's still not okay. And I think that this movement
should be vast enough where we can have all kinds
of nuanced conversations about how we think about consent and

(23:42):
sects in I think that concept was pointed out so
well in this Vox piece by Anna North. She writes,
perhaps what is especially threatening about Grace's story is that
it involves a situation which many men can imagine themselves
in But this is a reason to discuss it more,
not to sweep it under the rug. Listening to Grace
doesn't mean deciding all men to go to prison or
should lose their jobs. It does mean admitting that many

(24:05):
men behave in exactly the ways our culture tells them
to behave. It means asking men to recognize that and
do better, And it means changing the culture so that
badgering and pressuring women into sex is deplored, not endorsed.
None of this will happen if we refuse to reckon
with stories like Grace. I think we can all understand
how Grace's story is basically forcing us as a nation

(24:26):
to begin to define the parameters on what counts as
sexual assault. But it almost feels like how this op
ed brigade went down was a missed opportunity. It was
missing the opportunity for us to really have that national
conversation instead arguing over whether or not Grace was in
the right or in the wrong, and the same thing

(24:47):
for disease. Yeah, I was really disappointed how many of
these op eds in the what you're calling the op
ed brigade, which I completely agree fell down along the
lines of was it a crime or was it not
a crime? As if those are the only two binarias
that we can talk about a sexual encounter along was
it a crime Nope, nothing to see here, or if
it wasn't a crime, totally fine, no reason to talk

(25:09):
about it. And I think what you just said is
so important because it really underscores why it's imperative that
these stories are dealt with with nuance and thoughtfulness and care.
And as much as I'm so happy that Grace came
forward and I'm so happy that she told her story
because I do think it has a place in this movement,
I do think that Babe dot Net and the reporter

(25:30):
that broke the story did Grace a disservice because listen,
people's sexual traumas are sensitive. You owe it to your
sources to deal with them in a way that is responsible,
and I do not feel like the story was responsibly handled.
And after a quick break, will be joined by Jez
Bell Deputy editor julianne Escomato Shepherd to discuss how this

(25:51):
journalist missed the mark. And we're back just talking through
the recent allegations against comedian disease. AM sorry if you
haven't been following them, they were broken earlier this week
by the outlet Babe dot Net. And if you haven't
heard of babe dot net, you probably aren't alone. There

(26:14):
a site aimed at women in their twenties. Started in May.
Babe dot Net creates content for college students and twentysomethings.
The site is owned by Rupert Murdoch, Yes, the same
Rupert Murdoch who owned Fox News Network. Just to set
a little context there. So, after the firestorm that followed
these allegations being published in Babe dot Net, honestly, something

(26:37):
I don't think I've ever seen happen took place online.
Earlier in the show, we played that headline news clip
from Ashley Banfield Evice rating Grace and Katie Way, the
Babe dot Net reporter who broke the story, saying that
they had done a really terrible thing and a disservice
to the entire me too movement. Well, earlier this week,
that very same network invited the Babe dot Net reporter

(27:00):
onto the show to discuss these allegations. Not to be clear,
Banfield had really dragged both Grace and this reporter on
national television, So I do not bought this reporter for
not being super excited to come on the show, but Emily,
how did she respond? And so the latest chapter in
his insane saga is the babe dot net reporter sent

(27:20):
an email to Banfield's team that went completely off the rails,
insulting the network, insulting Ashley, saying that she was quote
someone I'm certain no one under the age of forty
five has ever heard of, by the way, and then
basically saying she could have talked to me, but instead
she quote targeted a twenty three year old woman in

(27:42):
one of the most vulnerable moments of her life, someone
she's never met before, for a little attention, which, by
the way, felt a little bit like double speak to me,
because isn't that exactly what this reporter had done to
that twenty three year old? But now she's yelling at
Ashley Banfield for going on a tirade against the victim, herself,
the grace person. So basically, this babe dot net reporters saying,

(28:06):
I hope the ratings were worth it. I hope the
five hundred retweets on the single news right up made
that burgundy lipstick bad highlights. Second wave feminist has been
feel relevant for a little while. Um, first of all,
what I like burgundy lipstick? What's wrong with burgundy lipstick?
I mean, I guess we're old, that's what she's saying.

(28:26):
Old like that. Yeah, I'm a certified old hag for sure.
But first of all, the irony of insulting a woman's
age and looks over these allegations. I mean, on top
of the irony that this is a reporter who basically
used this doz story to make her babe dot net
website that no one's ever heard of, by the way

(28:47):
to viral sensation, is insulting the news anchor for being opportunistic, Like, no,
that's not the person here who who is being exploitative
of a victim. Sorry. Yeah, So I really was shocked
by this email, and at the end of the day,
it just left me feeling really really sad for Grace.

(29:08):
I felt like Grace's story was not being centered. I
felt like this was a conversation to raise babe dot
nets profile to you know, this reporter obviously felt very
personally invested in this story, and it just made me
feel really really sad for this person who had made
these allegations. Yeah, it sounds like the story got away
from the actual what happened and became more about a

(29:32):
journalistic angle quite frankly totally. That's why it's so important
for stories like this to be told with nuance and responsibility.
And for more on that, we're joined in studio by
deputy editor of jezz bell dot com, Julianne Escobado Shepherd,
who wrote an amazing jazz Bell piece breaking down all
the ins and outs of why babe dot nets reporting

(29:52):
all these allegations kind of fell flat. Julianne, were so
happy that you could be here with us today, Hi, Bridget,
and I'm so excited to be are with you. So
in your must read jet Bell piece, you pointed out
some of the ways that babe dot net really almost
did a disservice to Grace in these allegations. Can you
talk about some of the biggest blaws you saw what
they're reporting? Yeah, I mean so as an editor, I

(30:14):
really wanted to just go in and rearrange it for one,
but um, well, I think one of my biggest issues
was that it really put the details of what happened
to Grace in such a way that felt um prurient
and almost gawky. UM, and you know, I can see
where that could possibly be even re traumatizing to her

(30:39):
or to anyone reading it. Obviously, you know there's always uh,
there's a risk of that, UM when you're reporting these pieces.
But I think just the way that it read, uh
sort of with some of the semior details of it, UM,
felt very exploitive, And that was my main issue with it.
It was very voyeuristic and how they laid out what

(31:01):
happened down to screenshots of text message exchanges, right, which
felt journalistically unnecessary, didn't it right? And also you know,
I think they were using that as proof that they
you know, some sort of proof that they had it
or but there was it wasn't actual proof, you know, UM,
we don't know. Obviously, screenshots are easy to doctor and UM,

(31:23):
you know, I think that there's more to be done
as far as UM corroborating a story that I think
that they did not do obviously, you know, I just
want to preface those with I believe Grace, and I
believe that this happened. But you know, you want to
as a journalist protect your sources, especially in stories like these, UM,

(31:43):
which can be you know, some of the most traumatic
stories for your subjects, um and they just didn't do
the amount of protection for her that I think those
kind of journalism really requires. I couldn't agree more. I
just left the entire thing just feeling really bad for Grace,
And I remember, you know this, this, all these allegations

(32:03):
created this hotbed of Twitter chatter and Facebook chatter, and
I'll never forget someone that I know and respect posting
on social media about the detail that she includes in
the story that Grace prefers white wine, but she didn't
get to choose the kind of wine that she wanted,
as these brought her red wine. And he said, oh,
is as these having his entire career ruined because he

(32:26):
didn't didn't order the right kind of wine or that
because you know, And it almost seemed like including that
detail made her story seem less believable, that she was
just annoyed that he you know, treated her badly on
this date, and it allowed readers to not focus on
the more serious aspects of what she was saying happened

(32:47):
that And also I think the inclusion of the author's
opinion of her outfit was completely egregious and then also
brings into question, you know, the idea that we how
of to talk about what women are wearing um in
these cases and cases of sexual assault. Like the fact
that she even included that part. I think maybe she

(33:09):
was trying to sort of push back on that idea,
but it actually ended up sort of reinforcing it. And
even the editorial liberties of naming one of his zes
moves as the didn't they call the claw that felt
like so unnecessary that it just felt exploited if and
the whole piece felt like a grab for clicks, didn't

(33:33):
it didn't it at the end of the day feel like, Okay,
this is a famous celebrity. We're gonna hop on the
hashtag bandwagon and do whatever we can in a really
sloppy way journalistically to sensationalize this entire movement, which did
not serve the broader movement, right. And I mean, also
I have to say that, you know, the journalists who
wrote this is very young, and so I think her

(33:56):
editors really failed her as well, um by not attecting
her by giving her the tools um to report because obviously,
you know, it seemed like this was the first time
she's ever done this kind of story, and um, you know,
this is she's just starting out in her career, so
she's probably at risk also, And you know, I feel
like this is overall a huge failing of a male

(34:19):
owned website of a lot of young women. So speaking
of the writer, UM, I was pretty troubled earlier this
week to see an email that she wrote to journalist
Ashley Banfield on Headline News after being invited to come
on the show to talk about the allegations. Not to
be clear, Banfield was very critical of both the Babe

(34:40):
dot net reporter and Grace for coming forward with these allegations,
and so I completely understand why she might not be
feeling the love for Ashley Bandfield. She went on like
a cable TV tirade against this piece. Okay, Um, so
I completely understand having a negative reaction to being invited

(35:01):
on a show where you and your source have just
been dragged. But I'm curious, what did you think of
that email response? Well, I mean to begin with again,
here is this writer Katie ways in experience coming forth?
Because you know, I fully understand her being angry. I mean,
Ashley Banfield was really um searing in a in a

(35:24):
way that was I found a little bit disturbing. Um,
but she didn't write off the record. She should have,
you know, from a journalist to another, she should have said,
this email is off the record, and then you can
say whatever you feel like saying, and you know, Banfield
would not be able to read it on air, but
she didn't, and so you know, she set herself up

(35:46):
for failure from that point. And then also what she said.
You know, obviously I think, you know, I agree with
her being angry, but then targeting her looks and targeting
her age is just you know, that is really disturbing
to me as a person who considers myself a feminist,
because that's not fair. You know, it's not fair game

(36:07):
to go after someone's physical appearance or their age, which
they cannot um regular you know, they have no control over. Um. Obviously,
going after her journalism is fair. So that really disturbed
me too, because it's sort of added to the narrative
that Babe was just doing this story to make a
name for itself. Speaking of reporters who do this kind

(36:30):
of reporting and why it's so important to make sure
that you're doing it with respect and thoughtfulness, I was
pretty shocked to see the way that Babe dot Net
was almost patting themselves on the back for breaking this story.
They published a piece that was literally just a list
of outlets that picked up their reporting that felt it
very poor taste me. Um. You also mentioned in your

(36:51):
jezz Bell piece how the Daily Beasts piece on the
allegations against t J. Miller from the show Silicon Valley
included this weird the tweet where the writer was talking about,
you know, how how proud he was at the story
and all of that. I don't think I've ever quite
seen anything like this where you have journalists and media
outlets almost congratulating themselves for reporting on someone else's traumatic experience.

(37:19):
Mm hmmm. I haven't seen it either, and it is
one of the most disturbing aspects to all of this,
I feel, And I think it ties into what I
wrote my piece, um about how since um Jodie Cant
and Megan Tubey broke the Weinstein story in the New
York Times in October, I think sexual assault reporting has

(37:40):
become a sort of prestige type of reporting where um,
because it's you know, there's this outing of all these
celebrities as predatory. UM. I think people are looking at
the celebrity aspect of it more than the actual fact
that women, UM and men are being da imaged. And

(38:02):
you know, I think there are a lot of people
who are just coming to this type of reporting and
it takes a special light touch. You have to know
how to do it so you don't re traumatize your
subjects and that you respect, um, you know the gravity
of the situation. And you also have to question why
you're doing this story. Are you doing it because you

(38:24):
want to change structure and changed institutions and um expose
people who abuse power, or you doing it because you want,
you know, a headline that has a famous person's name
in it, you know, And that's what I think that
the sort of boasting points to. It just seems like,
oh cool, like give us the Poulitzer for reporting on

(38:48):
t James Miller or whatever. It's it's so gross. Well,
it is a moment that's very modern by nature, right
in the air in which our commander in chief is
tweeting because he says that's the way to directly communicate
with the public. In the era when fake news is
the label that's used by anyone who wants to disagree

(39:11):
or discredit you, the importance of journalistic integrity has never
been more salient in in an era where anyone can
publish anything, truly. I mean, that's the democracy of the Internet.
And in your piece, you wrote perfectly here that we've
missed an opportunity. You say, quote, there was potential with
Grace's story. The conversations that followed could have given us

(39:34):
a real shot at cracking away at the imbalanced sexual
power structures that plague us, the power structures that tell
us a man's desires are more significant than a woman's,
And that conditioned Grace not to slap a thirty four
year old celebrity who she says, took it too far.
And I think that missed opportunity is a reminder of
just how important it is for all of us in

(39:56):
the Me too movement, but especially those who are reporting
on it to do so responsiblame. Yeah, I mean the
conversation that we should be having, and I think we're
starting to have, um in the last day or so.
It's so crazy that this piece was published like Saturday
night and it's not even been a week. Um. But

(40:19):
I think the conversation that we should be having is
about consent and about what these sorts of interactions between
men and women in particular, But I don't think that
they're necessarily confined to men and women about what they
say about power and expectation and traditional ideas of masculinity

(40:39):
and um, you know, obviously what the goal here is,
I think is to create a more equitable um bottom line.
But because of the way that the piece was reported,
it allowed us to only focus on that and not
and derailed the conversation. Yeah, just that describes so accurately

(41:00):
my trajectory of feelings on this situation. When I first
read the Babe dot net piece, I thought, finally we're
having on conversation that goes beyond what we all know
is awful, wherein someone very powerful and rich and famous
like Harvey Weinstein wages a ten like a ten plus
year campaign of sexual thoughts, harassment, and intimidation, and you know,

(41:22):
it's very obviously a wrong thing to do. It is
a crime, terrible, terrible. Finally we're having that conversation, but
also the conversation about interpersonal relations that are probably more pervasive.
I'm talking about, you know, coercing someone into sex, or
pressuring somebody into sex, or ignoring someone's non verbal and
verbal cues they're not into it, to kind of wear

(41:44):
them down. I think that in my experience, women are
more likely to face the second kind of sexual misconduct
and maybe not even think of it as sexual misconduct.
And I was like, yes, we're finally having that conversation.
But then when the conversation turned in to you, what
he did wasn't actually assault or babe at net is

(42:04):
a terrible outlet. Why did they include these details? Like
we totally missed the opportunity to deal with what Grace
lifted because of the way that was reported, right, And
you know, I think again, I think we are having
starting to have this conversation because finally we've gotten a
little bit past the reporting um. And one of the

(42:24):
most important things to come out of it is the
idea that all assault or harassment has to be legally
actionable UM. And I don't like the idea that just
because um, someone did something that isn't a jailable offense
doesn't mean that there's no imbalance of power. And again,

(42:47):
I think that particularly millennial women right now, are really
pushing to renegotiate the interactions that we have and I
think it's super important, and I think that I'm so
glad that Grace came forward with her story. I hope that, um,
you know, she's doing okay honestly because the way people

(43:09):
are reacting to it. But um, you know, I think actually,
if we step back and step away from the poor
reporting and step away from all the chatter about it,
you know, I think this is a really important story,
and you know, it was very brave of her to
come forward with it. Absolutely, I want to be clear.

(43:29):
I believe Grace, and I'm so happy that Grace came
forward because I think it's an important part of the
me too conversation. I just worry that Grace's experience is
not being centered in the resulting conversation. One specific thing
I'm curious about as a journalist, I was surprised to
find that this babe dot net reporter actually came to

(43:50):
Grace to get her to tell her story and not
the other way around. Is that typical in reporting these
kinds of stories? Um? Not. In my experience with these
swords sorts of stories, it's not like a typical you know,
finding someone and finding sources reporting out. You generally have
to wait for your sources to come to you because

(44:11):
you know, how did they know, to contratact grades did
someone give them her name? And that's unethical too, for
you know, to out another person as a survivor of
some sexual traumatic experience. UM. I think you know, I
understand wanting to report out these stories and wanting to
you know, putting your feelers out and being like, hey,
if you know of anyone, tell them to come to me.

(44:35):
But to you know, I'm not sure how they did it.
But I can't imagine ever cold emailing someone or cold
calling someone and saying like, hey, I heard that you
maybe had a traumatic sexual assault experience. I want to
tell me about it. Um. You know that's that's re
traumatizing and it's also I feel um, crosses an ethical

(44:58):
and moral boundary in journalism. So, Juliette, what lessons do
you think reporters and the media at large should take
away from babe dot nets sort of failures in this instance? Well,
the Darts Center has very specific guidelines as to how
to sensitively report uh these types of stories, and you

(45:20):
can go to their website and download them and print
them out and paste them to your wall. Things out still, Um,
And you know a lot of it is is really
just understanding that you're dealing with a probably traumatized person. Um.
But also that obviously you still have to do your
job in journalism, and and um, you know, call the

(45:42):
other person for comment and give them a reasonable amount
of time to respond. Unless your Harvey Weinstein, and you
know you you are have a history of shutting down
stories about you. But um, you know, that's another thing.
I think that Babe's story would have had more credibility
if they had give him that as these a little
bit longer to respond and hadn't published it on a

(46:03):
Saturday night. I don't know. That's a whole other thing,
though I don't understand why they posted it on a
Saturday night anyway. Um, But I think the media and
journalists at large just should take away that it's not
about them. Um. It's not about their career, it's not
about making their outlets more prominent, it's not about getting awards.

(46:24):
It's about the people who have this happens to, and
ideally making a more just society. I'm fully of the
belief that journalism should, at its best, um, and does
have the capacity to change our culture and our laws
in our society to be more equitable across the board.

(46:46):
And that's what this is about. I could not agree more. Well,
I really really thank you for being here today and
helping us shed some light on this nuanced, complex issue. Julianne,
Where can folks find out more about what you're up
to and keep up with you? Well, you can go
to jazz fill dot com, where most of my writing
appears um or you can follow me on Twitter at

(47:08):
john Nita j A w n I t A. Thanks
so much for joining us and helping us break down
how important it is that we, all of us, but
really journalists especially handle these hashtag me too movements with care?
So sminthy listeners, what do you think? Where do you
fall on this entire story? Was a ZS in the wrong?

(47:30):
I think most of us can agree on that, But
is it the system that's to blame? How do we
reconcile zes is outspoken feminism with what went down? According
to Grace? How do you feel about the babe dot
net journalists handling of the story and the op ed
brigade that followed. We want to hear from you. I'm
also curious about were experiences with dating? Do you think

(47:51):
the kind of thing that Grace as she went through
is par for the course or is it something worse?
Let us know. You can find us on Instagram at
stuff mom Ever Told You, on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,
and as always, via email at mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot com.