About — free speech

Something dawned on me recently, while sifting through — again — mounds of documentation related to cyberstalking and sexual harassment. After Doni Greenberg’s departure from The Record Searchlight — and the protest — I received a terse e-mail at work from someone who worked at the Redding Library. She complained about not knowing how to post her comment on my work blog, flamed and told me she wasn’t afraid of me or of me forwarding the note on to my supervisors. It wasn’t the first time — or last time — that I’ve received such an e-mail. I wrote her a polite response , told her I wasn’t the enemy and that I wouldn’t be posting her comment; that she’d have to post it herself. And I went on to tell her that I had no reason to forward her note on to my supervisors.

Enter my editor, who asked for the e-mail. I had little choice but to hand it over, including my response. It was, after all, company property and my boss, who could have pulled it from my archives, demanded it for his bosses. Apparently it was spotted in Greenberg’s blog comments, where she stated that she was unable to post it onto my blog.  He told me that the publisher would be contacting the writer because it’s not OK to harass employees. I thought it was overkill. But there wasn’t much I could do. (Those aren’t my feelings, however, in the colleague-involved sexual harassment and cyberstalking.)

Enter Valerie Ing-Miller and her comment on Greenberg’s blog. Was she referencing the woman who worked for the library and sent the e-mail? Probably, although I’ll never know. Sometimes hatred grows upon itself, morphs and becomes something else entirely when the difficult tasks of understanding, listening and empathy are abandoned.

Yes, as Ing-Miller, a journalistic peer by NPR ethics standards, states, I did send her — and her supervisors — an e-mail. Did I really want to see Marge Simpson’s (a contrast to Large Marge, aka Beth Doolittle-Norby) constant missives that told me what a lousy friend and reporter I was because — gasp — I was independent? I didn’t. I already knew her thoughts — a man who I was dating at the time told me all about them after she told him — and posting them to my blog seemed an unnecessary reinforcement. I didn’t appreciate the tag teaming, either. (Or the colleague who apparently showed them the anonymous harassment ropes, as he had done with another reporter.) And, in the one and only — that I know of — show of support, The Record Searchlight sent her a cease letter and followed it up with a telephone call to her Jefferson Public Radio (an affiliate of NPR) supervisor.

As for “hunting” down others who disagree. Please. There’s a difference between sexual harassment and cyberstalking and someone who says unkind or terse things. But the attack that I endured wasn’t about free speech. It was about lower passions, revenge, the intentional infliction of pain for not being a part of the herd and punishment in the most base and vile form to be found: The implicit fear of rape as leverage for my muzzling. What’s worse: My former employer gagged me, too, ordering me not to mention the harassment, Ing-Miller or Doolittle-Norby on my work blog (although they said I could start a personal, counter-flaming blog if I wished. I didn’t wish). And in all of the commotion that ensued my voice that told my editor of five years about a  colleague’s involvement was apparently lost.

For that, I’m deeply sorry. And, in a strange sense, deeply grateful. Grateful because, as a result of the chaos, I’ve had an opportunity to gain a clearer sense of self, understand motives and see a mob in action. It is as John Steinbeck describes in “In Dubious Battle,”  logical for a mob. And I’m also grateful because, as a result of all of this, I have the opportunity to further my career with more education, teaching and freelance opportunities. I began work on these in 2007 — minus the education part — when I was trying to organize an exit plan. So in a strange way, I’ve gotten just what I wanted, but not how I wanted it. Lots of things work that way, I think.

-Christy