Fox News Flash top headlines for March 29
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Washington Post national political reporter Felicia Sonmez scolded her own employer Sunday, claiming management at the liberal newspaper barred her from covering sexual assault-related topics because she is a survivor under a now-reversed policy.
"I do not feel supported by my employer," Sonmez wrote.
Sonmez was suspended by the paper last year for sharing a 2016 story about 2003 rape allegations againt basketball star Kobe Bryant shortly after his death in a helicopter crash. At the time, the paper said the tweets "displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of her colleagues."
The Post’s then-executive editor, Mary Baron, has since moved on and Sonmez explained that the ordeal came up during a recent session with her therapist.
Washington Post national political reporter Felicia Sonmez scolded the paper’s management, saying sexual assault victims are not supported.
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"At one point, he asked me whether I feel supported by the Post’s current management, now that the editor who oversaw my suspension had retired. And I just burst into tears," Sonmez wrote.
"It was the directness of his question that I think really caught me off guard. I’ve tried to keep my head down and just do my job the best I can, despite having to take myself off sexual assault-related stories at least once every week or two, sometimes even more often," she wrote.
"I faced no ban my first three months on the job. I wrote #MeToo-related stories with no problem. It was only once the Kavanaugh story broke in Sept. 2018 that the editors enacted one," she continued. "It was lifted several months later, then reinstated in late 2019 when I was being attacked online after the publication of a story about the man who assaulted me. The ban has been in place ever since, for more than a year now."
Sonmez claimed she had "pleaded with the editors" to lift the ban, to no avail.
"So I’ve just kept trying to do my job. But that question from my therapist forced me to acknowledge to myself that I do not feel supported by my employer," she wrote.
"Then, the town hall happened. My editor asked me that evening to write on the Violence Against Women Act the next day. I had to tell her I couldn’t," Sonmez continued, referring to a March 16 Zoom meeting to support Post reporter Seung Min Kim, who had been subjected to racist attacks online. Politico reported that Sonmez wrote in a company-wide chat: "I wish editors had publicly supported me in the same way."
Sonmez made it clear she did not feel supported following the Bryant incident and criticized Post national editor Steven Ginsberg for telling Vanity Fair that the newsroom needed to support female reporters who are attacked online.
"I was stunned to see that the same editor who has silenced me from defending myself online, said nothing when I had to leave my home amid threats and continues to bar me from fully doing my job was being quoted as an authority on protecting female journalists," she wrote. "This same editor was aware that his remarks at the 3/16 town hall had caused me deep distress."
Sonmez concluded her scathing thread by slamming excuses management has made for preventing her from covering sexual assault stories.
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"The reason I’ve repeatedly been given by senior editors is that they are worried about ‘the appearance of a conflict of interest’ if they allow me to write on sexual assault. They’ve told me they don’t believe there’s an actual conflict, or even that my writing would be biased in any way. I’ve sent them a long list of stories I’ve written that proves that’s not the case," she wrote. "This reason, I believe, makes no sense."
Sonmez wrote, "It would be great if senior editors at the Post prioritized *actually supporting* their female and POC staff instead of presenting the appearance of doing so as they compete for the paper’s top job. This harms all of us."
On Monday, a Post spokesperson told Fox News it would no longer prevent Sonmez from covering stories about sexual assault.
"Following a newsroom discussion two weeks ago, editors began re-evaluating limitations on the scope of Felicia’s work as a breaking news reporter," the spokesperson said. "They have concluded such limitations are unnecessary."
The entire thread can be seen here:
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