When a journalist who has suffered a sexual assault is prevented from reporting on them

The newspaper

The Washington Post

For years, it prohibited one of its reporters from reporting on stories containing sexual violence content after revealing herself in 2018 that she had been the victim of sexual harassment.

The case became known last weekend, when the journalist herself, Felicia Sonmez, harshly criticized the media's position against her on Twitter.

After the controversy, the newspaper decided last Monday to lift the ban that had gagged the reporter.

The news was advanced last Sunday

Politico

publishing, under a headline that did not give rise to speculation, that there was disagreement within

The Washington Post.

Sonmez expressed his feelings through his Twitter account with the following words: “Hello everyone.

My bosses tell me that the Post is going to rescind its ban, "wrote the editor, who declared that although it was" good news "it was" a pity that I had to pay such a high emotional price ", after his anguish was "dismissed for years."

“I'm going to take some time to rest and process all of this.

Thank you for your support ”, he added.

Due to the veto imposed, the reporter was unable to report on either the hearings for the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh - accused of sexual assault by a woman - or the allegations of harassment against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, among other news related to sexual violence.

Hi there.

I've been told by my editors that the Post is rescinding its ban.

This is good news, but it's unfortunate that it had to come at such a high emotional toll, and after my distress was dismissed for years.

I'm taking time to rest and process.

Thank you for your support.

- Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez) March 29, 2021

Sonmez, 38, reported in 2018 having been sexually assaulted by a professional colleague with whom she worked in China.

Sonmez's testimony encouraged other women to relate similar experiences that they had not told before.

But at the same time, it unleashed a fury against the reporter, who was subjected to public scrutiny in a very hostile way.

A right-wing magazine published a long story in which it exposed that the fact that the Sonmez attacker decided to resign from his post after the investigation that was opened to him was a clear example that the #MeToo movement had gone too far.

In the words of the reporter herself, collected by various means, the ban only reminded her of the trauma she went through, every time a colleague asked her why she was not the one covering certain information.

"I had to explain everything over and over, over and over again," explains the reporter.

Curiously,

The Washington Post

did not argue in its decision that it considered that Sonmez could not be objective when reporting such events, but rather that readers would consider that the journalist would have a favorable inclination towards victims of sexual violence that would alter her work.

The

Post was

contacted

by this newspaper, the newspaper's communication chief, Kristine Coratti Kelly, responded as follows via email: “After a debate in the newsroom two weeks ago, the bosses began to reassess the limitations on the range of the Felicia's job as a breaking news reporter.

It was concluded that the limitations imposed were unnecessary ”.

In last Monday's story with which the

Post

covers the story, and written by Paul Farhi, it is written that “it is unusual, if not entirely unusual, to prohibit a reporter from writing about a subject with which he is personally related or it has to do with the life of the reporter ”.

As Farhi relates, "news organizations typically value such experiences as they can offer readers or viewers a deeper and more special perspective."

Controversy with Kobe Bryant

This was not the first time that Sonmez had a confrontation with the

Post

.

In early 2020, after the tragic death of NBA star Kobe Bryant, while the Lakers player's followers dedicated themselves to honoring his memory and praising his life, Sonmez shared a link to information on his Twitter account, published in

The Daily Beast

in 2016, about allegations of sexual assault made against Bryant in 2003.

After sharing the news on Twitter, Sonmez received a wave of attacks from users of the social network and even death threats that forced her to leave her home after her address was made public.

Then, the then director of the newspaper, Marty Baron, considered that the reporter had lacked "common sense" when tweeting the news that referred to the accusation of sexual assault against Bryant - whose charges were dropped in 2005 - and that he was damaging with his comments "the institution" that the

Post

stood for

.

"Please stop," asked the former director, and then temporarily suspended Sonmez from employment.

• Kobe Bryant, or the price of remembering a complaint for sexual assault against the legend

The newspaper that exposed the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974, rescinded the suspension against Sonmez after more than 300 reporters signed a letter demanding his immediate incorporation to his job.

The

Post

bore the costs of hotel nights for the writer and the security it installed after receiving life-threatening messages.

On March 16, the

Post office

held a meeting through Zoom during which their bosses took the opportunity to defend the reporter Seung Min Kim from the racist and sexist attacks that Twitter users spat against her.

During the virtual meeting, Sonmez, who in recent years has been eaten on the networks by the case of Bryant or by his declaration of being a victim of sexual violence, took the opportunity to write a comment that read the following: “I wish that the bosses will publicly support me in the same way [as Seung Min Kim] ”.