“It’s forever. Next!!!!”

As a little girl arriving at sleep-away summer camp for the first of many weeks-long stays, one of my first lessons learned was when the new kids were divided into four groups, or teams, symbolized by animal typologies.

Finally at the front of the newcomers line but incredulous when informed I was being referred to the Turtle group, I’d inquired about how long the assignment would last before I could request a change.

Exoskeletons and Endoskeletons

It’s a silly thing, but I believe it was actually helpful to be required to consider the turtle’s strong suits when preparing to engage in sporting events in competition with groups advised to identify themselves with large predators. There are considerable advantages to conceptualizing one’s situation and strategy as analogues to those of a turtle, not the least of which are its possession of both an endo- as well as an exoskeleton. 

Possibly because of grateful exposure to religious environments, I have long enjoyed considering the idea of an exoskeleton being (imperfectly) analogous to lessons from the Old Testament and an endoskeleton being more akin to those of the New. Even though these are different, they are also related and complementary (especially while the endoskeleton is developing).

Like our country’s system of governance, the turtle is equipped with a spine and a muscular system, as well as a more external protective structure, and all are important. The turtle’s slow movement is a great strength whenever there is a risk of going in the wrong direction, and it is naturally protected from many types of attack.

Ours is a brilliantly designed vehicle. But I feel it is still worth considering why its safety features seem to be undergoing such rigorous tests.

Composition and Structure

There seems to be continual debate regarding which is more desirable in the betterment of a government, a family, an organization, or even a world – evolution or revolution – but I feel this question may be too simple.

It seems to me that perhaps impetuously taking a position on whether a government system in need of updating would be better served by changing the substance out of which it is composed or the structure into which it is composed, fails to account for the difference between core, or constitutional, and peripheral, or non-constitutional, load-bearing system components. 

We all agree compositional change, and specifically, equitable diversification with regard to race, gender, and other less visible attributes, has made and continues to make organizations of all kinds better in every way (although every person is, in a sense, still a minority of one). While structural (and I use this term differently than it is generally used), as opposed to only compositional, change may indeed be necessary, I wonder whether it might make sense to apply this to peripheral system components – namely stock market and media sectors – before constitutional ones. And I believe it may be particularly important to consider where these overlap.

Not to engage in such a critical frame review would arguably be like noticing that a child who has just picked up a very cumbersome backpack has also just begun having difficulty walking and then concluding that the most logical first step will be to determine whether his arms and legs should be replaced in order to correct the problem.

I believe that while there are many factors to consider in selecting a focus for structural change within a locomotive system, the main one is a question: what is each component’s primary function? As defined by our Constitution in the spirit of our Declaration of Independence, every branch of government shares one particular primary goal – and that is to uphold and advance the ideas of human equality and freedom. While many peripheral organizations, including the stock market and corporate media sector may share the former goal, it seems almost never to be primary. 

Diverse, but poorly designed, organizations can still behave sub-optimally when putting brand equity above human equality. (Knowing the right thing to do is a lot different than actually doing it.)

I personally experienced what I would call gender-based abuse in a wonderfully diverse media organization within which I turned to colleagues who were POC, non-POC, women, men, LGBTQ, and non-LGBTQ, but always seemingly meeting the same result – inaction. When I later reached out to an also wonderfully-diverse employment law firm simply to learn about whether what I had experienced was illegal, I was pressured to tell the name of the company as an initial step, which I made clear I did not want to do. But when I did, they stopped our introductory dialogue, telling me they may want to work with the company in the future.

I believe both individual and collective success in our current hybrid system of constitutional and non-constitutional load-bearing components needs to be based on more than just an ability to duck while profiting from organizations that knowingly make first priorities of aims beneath those of the country.

On Phases

It would seem that, in our hybrid system of core and peripheral structural elements, there is a fundamental tension between endeavors featuring the primary aim of supporting and protecting the ideal of human rights and endeavors featuring the primary aim of maximizing stock market investor return. One could consider the first an American ideal and the second as potentially un-American.

I believe it is worth noting that these opposing aims seem to be, increasingly, expressed in higher education with many courses of study offering opportunities to explore how these structural elements work through a critical lens and with an eye toward bettering them (American), and many departments seeming to teach how to exploit (un-American) and indefinitely maintain broken systems.

But I believe it may be wrong to continue to talk about these courses of study as the theoretical and the practical, as has traditionally been done, given the degree to which recipients of so many so-called professional degrees seem to go on to willfully seek ignorance and stasis (an arguably un-American proposition), although there are unquestionably very numerous exceptions.

Obtaining JD and MBA degrees, akin to settlements where one can richly feed and clothe a family is an understandable and honorable aim, and certainly a human right. And law and business schools belong on university campuses as the adjacency between the pursuits of the ideal tomorrow and what is workable today presents undeniable benefits.

But it seems to me, moving forward, degrees focused only on inflating the stock market should be reconsidered. It goes without saying that perpetually alternating between presidents who are stock market-focused lawyers and MBAs makes about as much sense as alternating between soaking a towel in scalding hot and then freezing cold water when one’s goal is to keep it as dry as possible.

I also believe it may also be important to more explicitly identify and name the purpose of educational organizations as being infinitely more than downloading how to exploit and maintain broken systems that serve a small number of individuals but do overall harm to the world. Educational organizations should arguably be much more about nurturing and protecting the value students arrive already possessing. By focusing on encouragement and protection first, I believe many educational organizations can be restored to greater functionality.

These being the qualities many life-long learners seek in a variety of environments, it is incidentally worth wondering why there seems to have been an exodus from professions historically focused on providing nurturing and protection, as it seems reasonable to intuit that the number who are naturally inclined to express these qualities has not decreased.

What if, after a reasonable transition period, universities could only obtain and keep accreditation if they are able to prove that none of their senior staff or faculty possess (stock market-focused) JD or MBA degrees?

An MBA I worked for in media was well-known for what was widely considered abusive behavior but quick to reward ratings-boosters with on-air opportunities and explicit praise for bolstering shareholder return. Hunters certainly believe they are doing a good thing, even though their relationships with their targets are obviously fraught to the point of irreconcilability. This person’s hirers arguably knew this man was market- and ratings-focused before assigning him editorial responsibilities.

On Sponsorship 

Many ways of doing business that could be called carnivorous do considerable overall harms to the world, but sometimes these harms are arguably born less of malice than of ignorance.

One reason I feel it is important to talk about these ways of doing business in terms of two sectors in particular – corporate media and the stock market – is that they are two of the most influential and important in our country but, because of the way their means of generating revenue are designed, operate separately from the stated purpose of our government.

(It is worth noting that the amplifying overlap of stock market and media influence and its resulting effects on the educational and business sectors has not taken place in a vacuum, and that conflicts set up or fixed for betting or entertainment purposes are usually less about combatants than sideline gamblers.)

What is perhaps most noteworthy about the seeming force that the fusion of stock market and media influence seems to emit is that it is practically mindless. If it’s true that he who pays the piper calls the tune, as the old saying goes, “he” would be no person in the context of publicly traded media outlets, but a rather blind force, rewarding whatever and whomever garners the most attention or furthers the business interests of publicly-traded media. This seems the definition of a codependent relationship and, to the extent that the result is to encourage vulnerable states like fear, panic, sadness, etc, it is carnivorous as well.

(While I disagreed with a lot in his talk, I really appreciated how pithily a magazine editor shared music researcher David Huron’s theory about attention-grabbing here. And, I wonder, if Huron’s observations apply, and given that product consumers’ attention is the lifeblood of corporate media, when does the current album end?)

The overlap of stock market and media influence seems even to have bent the political spectrum into more of a horseshoe shape with the poles now consisting of moderates on one end and both extremes on the other. The clearest sign of this is arguably that one of the most popular grassroots movements in recent memory has been defined by an understatement about the value of human life. While the rejection of hyperbole is, to a degree, refreshing, that so many people feel such an understatement is needed in order to be heard is important. Will the world in the future know people feel unheard if a 2+2 = 4 movement arises?

I have felt reminded recently of a modern comedian’s remarks on formulaic comedy as being akin to emotional abuse featuring the intentional imposition, and then release, of tension. While it is true that the current election cycle does seem like a considerable relief, it may be worth asking why there needed to be such a build-up of tension in the first place.

And this practice scales.

When suddenly reporting to the Larry King team, as mentioned before, it felt as if my home, my career, my community, and even my sense of safety had all been amputated all at once, without warning, and without anesthesia. I faced what felt like continual promises from a man to basically grant me access to my dream life but, while like many women I did dream of marriage, I more often felt like practically all he was offering was to restore all I had before I met him and agreed to work for his team.

I feel that, in resurgent but outdated situations like this, the men and organizations involved are not sexist or ill-intentioned in the sense that they genuinely dislike women or audiences any more than hunters who are not required to design their own wall or floor art are lion-ists or tiger-ists.

Everything about this situation was easily remedied, but my boyfriend’s boss seemed very much to want him to be confident so that his future success could be bet on, and I felt this was one reason it was allowed to continue. In another setting, perhaps she would have felt more able to prosper by protecting and encouraging us both.

The only person who I ever saw publicly describe the kind of unsettled feelings I experienced trying to move on was the reporter Jill Carroll, although I obviously did not experience anything remotely similar to what she did. If I recall and understood correctly, this reporter described having felt almost like she had encountered a series of nonsensical punches that finally stopped but without any sort of meaningful explanation or closure. Before hearing this, I had described the feeling of being trapped by the Larry King Live team as being like sitting calmly next to a river only to have my head suddenly held under water for no reason at all and with no explanation, and, although it finally did stop, feeling unsure how to move on without articulating what happened well enough to effectively request that it never happen again, to me or to anyone.

This was such a lonely feeling but it was actually another survivor of a tragedy I know I can only imagine whose public talks helped most. Even though I realize our situations are not analogous, it was listening to the kindness expressed in talks by Elizabeth Smart that helped in some moments when I felt so incredibly unheard. Just having these on in the background, even if I was too tired to listen, helped me be able to fall asleep on several occasions. 

On Safety Features in the Educational Sector

When trying to find a way to derive healing solutions long after this experience, and even after trying to move on by changing careers, I felt right about seeking to do so in a graduate environment. (This was difficult as I wished to reconnect to the journalism world but had made a career change, and so I sought simply to find a university with a diversity of relevant departments.)

But I realized quickly, and before classes began, that in graduate school (which I soon left without a degree), there seemed to be a lot of tolerance for prejudice and bullying that felt wrong to me. I sought both to make peace with those with whom I seemed to disagree fundamentally and asked for guidance from the university’s law school about whether it would be wise to keep my work and studies separate given my discomfort and their understanding of policy; and, as I recall, was told this would be wise. This was devastating because I wished very much to be able to find a place to work on solutions to what I had experienced in the journalism world. I hoped to be able to find feedback about my ideas but did not feel able to do so while behaviors I encountered persisted, and I felt an environment where I felt sure basic concepts of human rights would be upheld would be essential.

After being pressed to expound on what and why I believed, I shared that I supported the idea of human equality from the standpoint that all are created equal in a religious sense. When I did so, I was asked to affirm or deny publicly my belief in spirituality and, when I affirmed, I was admonished in front of an entire class in what I would characterize as considerable anger, that people who made such acknowledgements were to be considered fools. I also felt admonished for standing up for people of color.

I shared that I felt I needed to keep work and school distinct while sorting out where my beliefs would be a good fit and while I learned about how to navigate policy. But, when I did so, the administrator with whom I was speaking, while at first expressed momentary gladness about my disclosure, became angry about my resistance to working closely with him; and my immediate concern was that my words would be taken out of context in order to disable the consciences of my new colleagues and potential allies. While I tried to strike a balance between saying something about harshness that followed when it felt absolutely necessary but ignoring it by and large, the same administrator eventually went on to tell me that his staff had become very hostile toward me but that this could all stop.

Despite multiple reports, I felt unsure about how to proceed; and despite requests to be able to communicate with other students who had gone through similar challenges, I was told this wouldn’t be possible.

On the Right to Choose

I feel that as we have stopped celebrating other traditionally protective positions, many aspects of a variety of fields, including traditional journalism, at least seem to have been partially abdicated.

While this change has been lamented by many, I feel it may be worth remembering that the journalism sector’s right to choose what to publish is enshrined in the Constitution, and it arguably should be.

But just as the journalistic sector is endowed with almost no Constitutional responsibility, aside from the universal responsibility to refrain from crimes of commission, it is also, notably, endowed with no authority.

I recently read an opinion claiming that there is simply only so much time and space journalistic organizations have with which to communicate the most important news of the day. But this is not true. Journalistic organizations electively abort legitimate and important stories – and replace them with fluff, the sensationalistic, and, increasingly, the shallow, constantly for business and personal preference purposes.

Given how heavily the public rely on journalistic institutions – just as much if not more than on government institutions – it is worth noting that right now, the sector’s leading mandate seems to be to tell stories that support its business & pr interests, the whole of stories that support its business & pr interests, and nothing but stories that support its business & pr interests. 

When I first began to move on from several news organizations because of concerns of conscience – not because I did not love much of the work – I assessed the primary problems I hoped to solve, but it did not feel like anyone would be willing to listen.

Response Time

After saving more than 150 people aboard flight 1549, Captain Sullenberger shared that “unlike all those other flights … this one would probably not end on a runway with the aircraft undamaged. And I was okay with that, as long as I could solve the problem.”

Although I know I am not able to imagine what it would have felt like to pilot a failing airplane like this hero, I believe there may be analogies between aviation and work, especially in news organizations moving at incredibly quick speeds with almost unreasonable power, and involving the lives of so many people.

One reason I have worked so long to help address problems encountered in the journalism industry is that there appear to be truly major ones that remain to be solved.

In my case, after experiencing pressure from the senior leadership of my company, as well as my boyfriend, to join my boyfriend’s team at work, it was like being pushed to get into a particular plane, or program team, that almost immediately began to lose altitude, covering stories in ways that felt wrong for me; but the person who had claimed to be my co-pilot, my boyfriend, turned to me, smiled, and revealed at that moment that only he had been outfitted with a parachute. (Each time I sobbed to this man, who had behaved like a completely different person before I agreed to join his team, about how devastating it had been to give up my job in New York or to realize what his team was really like, he only smirked and looked proud of himself.) For a moment it felt like my best chance of survival was to believe him when he said he would help me get back to my own plane, so to speak, although I realize now it was unhelpful to think so narrowly. I maintain that the kind of sequence of events I reported to the company, in which a personal relationship and professional relationship are pressured to merge, should generally not be permitted in news organizations, and that behind-the-scenes scenarios have everything to do with the quality of news products ultimately broadcast, given that people whose human rights are protected are empowered to do better work.

While I was not in an unwanted relationship, getting an unwanted job offer within our company from my boyfriend’s boss, facilitated by my boyfriend, in conjunction with a marriage proposal felt practically like being hit by an asteroid.

Even though I did not want to share my story broadly, after several years I did share not only the very basics of my flight report, to follow the analogy further, but detailed and specific possible solutions that I thought would be helpful. All responses, and particularly that of a religious newspaper, stunned me.

When I wrote to another prominent publication, The Columbia Journalism Review, its editor wrote back simply, “we’ll pass,” and then only days later announced he had hired a dedicated CNN editor.

I believe it is essential to note that these organizations are not mandatory reporters and that, as well-intentioned as Hollywood coverage of gender disparities in media companies may have been, it did not necessarily help. The metoo movement should arguably have been about individual women and survivors being protected, heard, and honored for their perspectives and solutions.

On Altitude & Attitude

I had originally joined the journalism world after experiencing 9/11 at the Capitol and wanted to do helpful journalism. But pressures to cover stories in ways that did not feel good to me became very challenging. At one point, when asking a senior manager at my company about how I might be able to move from my boyfriend’s team and what turned out to be a job totally different than I was expecting (I had thought I would be covering Supreme Court cases, although I felt I would be happy on any team focused primarily on doing good), he emphasized that decisions were being made for business reasons, and not journalistic ones.

Even though this guidance was disconcerting, the words were validating. When I later encountered pressure at another organization to produce a series of stories about which I felt wrong, I almost felt like I had no choice but to give my notice. Not only did I feel the way journalism was being approached within this project would be unhelpful, based on earlier experience, I also worried human rights within the organization would crumble. When a colleague soon behaved in a way I believed was wrong, I did not report.

When a news organization’s focus moves from informing to persuading, there seems to be a slippery slope along which the relationship between what is said and what is meant breaks down. And for a journalism organization to become principally an entertainer or opinion-sharer can be problematic if it becomes, at its heart, about impressing and controlling rather than informing and freeing. I feel this is more and more evident as both journalists and celebrities address their audiences in the second person.

I should note that editorial decisions that put extreme profit before journalism are, at least in my opinion, not about any kind of conspiracy or campaign of discrimination but more of a willful negligence and a lack of creativity stemming from a stock market shareholder model.

Most of the challenges I have witnessed in the journalism industry have been in the form of men preventing women from enjoying equal opportunity. While I believe this was totally wrong in every instance, there may be ways to expand the overall amount of opportunity available. So long as organizations are willing to engage in conversations about how this may be done.

Absent an adjustment (even if it is totally different from anything that has been proposed so far) mandating human rights requirements in media organizations, the Constitution’s treatment of the press would arguably need to be updated in order to require consequences for crimes of omission rather than only crimes of commission. This is as safety enjoyed at work correlates so directly with the helpfulness of broadcasts produced. I do not believe for a moment that corruption in the American media sector is the only reason that, in the modern day, we were still dealing with problems like race-based violence and climate change at such a large scale, but I do believe it is possible it the main reason.

On Constraints & Level Playing Fields

Anytime creative solutions are required, reasonable constraints are a wonderful catalyst; and if uncreativity is the last ammunition of the confederacy, environments in which select groups are exempt from reasonable constraint are the artillery.

Safety features in work environments could be called identical to acknowledgements of equality. By subjecting male employees, and all groups, to normal constraints at work, we can work more effectively towards environments in which, through coaching and encouragement, iron sharpens iron, so to speak. While coaching could be considered akin to inoculation against adversity, bullying, or inequity, may be more like exposure to an unnecessarily formidable foe.

I believe what seems to get lost most often in conversations about equality in action is not just that environments meant to afford safety sometimes seem to selectively allow predatory behavior but that they arguably encourage it.

Even though it is a very extreme example, anyone required to read Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning in college probably remembers most vividly the relative normalcy of the men’s earlier lives.

Author Betty Mahmoody reported specifically about her husband’s positive behavior before their momentous move. 

While it was not analogous, one of the strongest memories I have of the change I experienced in moving from my regular job to my boyfriend’s team at CNN was going from a feeling of parity in facing the dramas but also the triumphs of similar challenges and opportunities to feeling as though, while we remained on the same set, so to speak, this man was suddenly living a comedy and I very different genre.

It would seem that what appears to be a carnivorous instinct being so persistent, we either need to find a better way to coexist on the same boat, so to speak, or enlarge it. Working to prevent the enlargement of the boat would arguably be wrong.

On Boaz & Zacheus

Of course, there are many examples of historical leaders who, despite the ability to behave wrongly, did not. 

Every time I personally remember the story of Boaz in the Old Testament, I literally feel loved – not by any particular individual I have never met, but touched by the purity and strength of this person’s clearly loving nature.

Boaz was in favor of Ruth’s safety & well-being long before she proposed to him, and I am always reminded that he knew what he was doing.

This expression of Boaz’s loving heart was evidently very short-lived as he did not live long beyond his wedding to Ruth. But I don’t believe it matters in considering its momentousness. Olympic performances are short too.

I am also reminded often of the New Testament figure of Zacheus, a reformed financial predator who made such a complete turnaround that it is heartening today.

On Embassies

As I have written at length before, at least within the world of my former company, it felt when I agreed to work for the Larry King Live team, it was as if I stopped being treated as a full citizen and moved against my will to a much less developed country. Mahmoody determined to leave Iran “Not Without [Her] Daughter.” Even though our experiences are totally different, I, like many women, also felt like I needed to leave a lot behind to get away.

It is a big idea, but I believe it is arguable that the most ruthless components of publicly traded-companies are a remnant of a less democratic and historical form of American government – a shape-shifter defined much more by the genus vulnerable-sim than the sub-species racism, and are the most significant foreign influence that has historically interfered in American affairs. It would make sense for this element to switch political parties, disperse, and possibly become less strong, each time this fact is only partially exposed.

So long as organizations, and particularly publicly-traded ones, are permitted to pursue profits above all else and, notably, above the mandate to protect the concept of human equality on which our country was founded, it is arguable there should be a way for them to be held accountable, and perhaps literally by American embassies.

I disagree to say the least with many of the current administration’s approaches to social and environmental justice matters. But I believe the proposition of the total fusion of corporate media and executive branch of government would also be problematic. It is hard for the current election not to feel like filling a cavity without having eliminated all the rot.

It may be worth it to occasionally take time to remember that there is no constitutional requirement that publicly-traded and brand-first media corporations be permitted to serve as the only and central sun around which American government revolves.

This could be called one+one=two-day. Or just to-day.