December 6, 2017--Why Words Matter

I received this comment from Hedy Rona yesterday about the outing of Metropolitan Opera musical director James Levine as a sexual predator--

I hear what you’re saying about going to the New York Times to read news reported in sleazeless/non tabloid-y ways. 

But to mince the words or temper the graphicness of the transgressions and crimes of the predators and harassers can leave all the good and genteel readers less outraged than they might or should be. 

If there are no actual photos as evidence that Matt Lauer or Harvey Weinstein showed a woman their penis (you know—picture being worth a thousand words) then the words used to report what happened need to be blunt, explicit, and factual. 

Though even with the president actually caught on tape saying so explicitly the things he did about grabbing women it still didn’t matter. Lots of people—lots of WOMEN!—voted for him! (And now we even have him saying he didn’t say those things and the tape was doctored. “Fake news!” But that’s another rant altogether.) 

Of course even when you have images that are as graphic as the Emmet Till murder or the bones of victims of genocide (pick a genocide, any genocide of the 20th century for irrefutable evidence that IT HAPPENED) there will still be the deniers. (To wit your story about someone you know in Maine refusing to believe that Mitt Romney, not Democrat governor Deval Patrick, signed the Massachusetts healthcare act even though there is a video of it on YouTube!). But those are the lost causes. The deaf ears the truth will never reach. 

Rather it’s the rational and reasonable people out there who for whatever reason doubt the full extent of the crimes and transgressions of the people who have been so admired. The people who can’t believe that the Matt Lauer they had their cereal with every morning is actually a perverted creep who belongs in stocks at a minimum. It’s just hard to believe what people are capable of. 

But that’s why the words matter.

December 5, 2017--The Ugly Reaility

The latest sexual harassment outing is of James Levine, not a household name, the former music director and revered conductor of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra.

These charges, as with Roy Moore's, go back many years, actually decades, to as long ago as 1986. Again, those who revealed the abuses spoke about how they feared accusing Levine because, as musicians, he might have on-going power over their professional lives. 

In addition, as with Moore's accusers they were ashamed of what happened, including how in some cases he lured them into "relationships" in which they continued to participate. 

Most of my information about Levine's behavior as well as that of Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, Louie C.K., Harvey Weinstein, and of course Donald Trump comes from the New York Times. Striking to me again yesterday morning when the Levine outing appeared was how graphic the gray-old Times has been in its reporting.

In the case of James Levine there were specific and vivid descriptions of how the conductor lead his young victims into reciprocal masterbation. With Weinstein we learned about his attempts to get aspiring actresses to massage him prior to forcing them to participate in various forms of sexual activity. We learned details of Matt Lauer's office set up, including the button he had at his desk so he could lock the door to provide a safe environment for him to have forced sexual intercourse with young staffers. And then there are the details of Mark Halperin's and Garrison Keiller's sexual proclivities and "techniques."

And not to be forgotten, was the Times's publishing the transcript of the Billy Bush tape in which Trump boasted about grabbing women's p****s. With the paper of record not using the bowdlerizing ****s.

Reading the article about James Levine yesterday morning I raised this graphic reporting with Rona. I indicted I was not comfortable with it, even wondering if the Times, competing for readers, was being so explicit in order to attract subscribers who would enjoy the soft-core reporting.

Rona said, "But that's the point. To make readers feel uncomfortable. Not just intellectually but to engage our sense of disgust. To employ euphemisms would take away some of that visceral outrage."

"Good points," I conceded, "I get it and think, in my case at least, it is working. I am fully disgusted."

"One more thing," she added, "And don't think it's a stretch."

"Go on."

"You remember, I'm sure, the mass murder at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut in 2012.  Do you recall how you said at the time that to make a powerful, maybe persuasive case for some form of federal control of automatic weapons and high velocity ammunition, rather than Obama and others just talking about it, to make the case more persuasively, they should have released the autopsy photos of the murdered children so that we could see the full effects of these kinds of combat weapons on small children. It would be hideous to see. But, again, that's the point."

"I do remember that. Maybe you're right. Maybe we have to stop covering up the ugly details of sexual abuse and even mass murder."

"We can't just sit around," Rona said, "and allow ourselves to become inured to it. It's not about pseudo-outrage and titillation. We need to find active ways to fight back."