On Sequence

Today I was grateful to be able to re-read a portion of Henry Drummond’s The Greatest Thing in the World, a book from which I have a great deal to learn. And it’s been occurring to me recently how important it is to try to keep things both in their proper proportion and in their proper order. So many priorities are important to consider today, but not all are equally important.

I don’t know what it is about space odysseys, but I got to thinking – again – along these lines about Apollo 13 today and, in particular, about how important taking the right steps in the right order was on so many occasions in the rescue of its famous trio of astronaut voyagers.

On Conflation and Inflation

So many people, I believe, continue to feel not just separate from, but almost hopelessly excluded and far from public affairs debates of deep interest to them personally. And I’ve wondered often what might be a sensible next step forward. The women’s movement has arguably been an enormous step forward for the world and the African American rights movement another. But I still believe the matter of corporate media hegemony, which has been interwoven within both of these phenomena in problematic ways, needs to be addressed – directly.

During the women’s movement in journalism I remember it dawning on me that, soon, media corporations would find a way to seize on another social justice cause in order to downplay solutions to the problems posed by their business models, redeem themselves in public view (but not in reality), and guard against any challenge to their hegemony over the country. They would make theatrical attempts to prove their value to the world, I imagined, in a sort of whitemailing overture – not to maximize progress, however, but to do everything in their power minimize it, which I believe they have done for the purpose of maintaining power.

But I also remember debating internally whether this could ultimately work out for good. Wouldn’t everyone – at least hopefully – immediately detect what was happening and be clear-headed enough to identify co-optation when they saw it (both in the women’s movement and the movement for the further advancement of African American rights) and find it in themselves to simultaneously support both movements against discrimination and the need to hear critiques of corporate media business models?

Not without information, I’ve deduced since; and, without a functional journalism sector, where could citizens even potentially access information?

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I recently looked up the definition of “woke” in the Cambridge English Dictionary and appreciated its association with the word “aware.” To wake, of course, is simply to be alert and perceptive to a greater degree than before.

Anytime I hear a so-called new-wave independent pundit talk about the new corporate media “ideology” and call for a counter-revolution, I brace myself just as I would as if she has said more explicitly “I’ve fallen for the hoax.” What is termed wokeism, of course, is itself the cobbling together of two totally different – and, ultimately, irreconcilable, concepts that need to be seen as distinct before they can be understood: it is itself a self-defensive reaction by corporations to legitimate calls for greater emphasis on social justice, but its lack of dimensionality, depth, and nuance derives from these corporations’ own attempts to maintain dominance over democracy by silencing critiques of their inherent limitations as stock market-affiliated entities.

To awake is a good thing. But the grotesque parody wrongly called wokeism and all-too-often correlated with hundred-million dollar communications deals today is, I believe, much more than anything else a co-optive measure designed to distract, to desensitize, and to delay renovation of our communications infrastructure by the use of bribery.

During the earlier part of the women’s movement, I had not anticipated how coordinate attempts to silence critiques of media business models would be. But I’ve marveled, particularly with regard to the Hollywood “Morning Show” production, of whose seasons I have only watched the first, at how little time was afforded between a main character’s emotional assertion that a woman being pressured to talk about a harrowing experience wasn’t “ready” to do so and that same main character’s almost immediate, subsequent plea in the next season’s coming attractions that everyone please just “move on.”

How bizarre it felt in the interim to see Hollywood stars like this one making the most enormous communications salaries, arguably much more for silencing citizens than for expressing their views, performatively post a personal cell phone number online or on television just before inking a many-multi-million-dollar-deal.

But women’s ideas and contributions, at least as much as women’s stories, needed to be welcomed meaningfully, allowing corporate media business models to be critiqued constructively. I believe the fact that this has not yet really occurred is the main reason we still seem almost never to be talking about what we’re talking about in public dialogues in the current climate.

No bribe – to any Hollywood actress or journalist – will suffice to ameliorate the need for an open discussion of this important topic, particularly as extremism seems to continue to be on the rise. And it feels important to underscore that, at times like this, extreme left, or, communist, forces are just as important to guard against as fascist ones.

Because I still believe CNN goes to considerable lengths to avoid acknowledgment of and apology for gender-based abuse, I find it hard not to consider this to be a declaration they intend to continue the practice. And especially as the company continues to pursue Hollywood glamour even as it, as I read at least, plans to produce a documentary giving an overview of the women’s movement in journalism – without acknowledging its own part, misleading not only viewers but individual women – I believe it important to persist in requesting some form of apology. Particularly as, increasingly, money means something very different to flush media corporations than it does to struggling individuals, it’s important to insist that acknowledgment be at the level of words, which hold equal value to every person.

Why Talking About Sexual Abuse Matters

For anyone who has ever studied structural engineering, you know that in order to guard a building against formidable wind and weather forces, it is generally necessary to anchor it to a deep foundation. And I believe this is an important analogy for women to consider when entering the workforce.

I don’t know that people, in general, recognize the degree to which men can exert pressures that would prevent women from achieving independence, success, or progress in the workplace but I do remember, starting out, recognizing intuitively how important a professional foundation of my own would be to establish and to maintain.

But when a colleague I was dating, and to whom I was engaged, seemed to go to very extreme lengths to make me as vulnerable as possible, as disconnected from my normal supports as possible, and as dependent on him as possible, I failed to defend myself fully enough, and I also did not recognize in real time all of the tactics he was using in secret. This person, to whom I felt I could easily stand up for myself while firmly rooted in my own career and personal independence, seemed to become terribly emboldened after I agreed to work for his team, after which time I started to feel less like I was in a relationship, or even fully part of my work community anymore but, rather, cast in a play, never knowing what steps he was taking behind the scenes in order to mislead people into doing with their lives as he wanted. It’s easy to be led around by another person, after all; still, I’d not realized how many people want to be led in this way.

I remember a dear friend at the company who was far more wary of this man than I was remarking, when a betrothed woman went missing, in her almost impossibly strong southern accent I don’t know Megan, I think it’s going to be you next.

But I recall wanting to say, once this woman’s plot to fake her own disappearance was uncovered and she endured terrible judgement from pundits all over, “I won’t let them hurt you. I think I may know why you did what you did. I’m the only one who understands you, Jennifer Eubanks!” Of course, I knew nothing, really, about this news story, but I also had begun to feel I had not anchored myself to a deep enough foundation to avoid the toppling of so much of what I loved about my life and career by the man in my life at that time, I felt terrified by the prospect of raising someone who sometimes felt like a like a two hundred fifty pound toddler 100% on my own; and my attempt to extricate myself from the situation, at least for a time, seemed to culminate in an experience of what I believe would be right to call serious sexual abuse.

The day this happened to me, I had already, devastatingly, agreed to give up a job I’d loved and a transfer to New York about which I had been almost indescribably thrilled in one of the worst-feeling moments in my life; and I’d agreed to leave the community where I’d felt so secure and at home in order to rent a terrifyingly expensive apartment out in the distant suburbs, near Jordan’s condo, in another compromise that felt almost stomach-turning.

That morning, I’d been getting ready for work and taking a bubble bath (I worked afternoons) and, because I’d just gotten a haircut and purchased beauty care products that had come with a free bathrobe, I remember, sillily, looking at this new item in my bathroom, marveling that, like a rich person, I actually owned a bathrobe.

When I heard a knock on my door (I must have imagined this was related to some sort of building maintenance matter, as people generally did not knock on the door there), I remember feeling, in a moment of levity, that I could pretend to be a rich person answering the door to receive a delivery of rich person food in my luxuriously big, rich person bathrobe; but then I realized the person on the other side had been Jordan.

I was so artificially vulnerable, that day. Not only being caught totally off guard (he had ended our engagement weeks before this, moments after learning he would be offered a promotion in the new city to which he was preparing, and to which he’d invited me, to move; and I’d had no reason to believe I would ever see him again), not only standing there unprepared in my bathrobe, and not only being terrified of how much more harm he could do to me after sabotaging my career, but I was living and working within a system at CNN that I felt privileged him massively and disadvantaged me in remarkably brazen ways the more fully it transitioned from a journalistic to a ratings-first business model, and using methods I was not in a position humanly to understand fully. But the company was. (How many nondisclosure agreements had women who had experienced gender-based abuse and discrimination at CNN signed before that day? How many were specific to the repugnant Hollywood-adjacent and ratings-focused team of which Jordan was a part but that was so unfamiliar to me?) In the moment he so unconscionably pressured me to allow him treat my body in a way I had never allowed and had not wanted outside of marriage, I remember frantically searching my mind for a safe way out – a way to get away – but I felt intensely and frighteningly trapped.

How many, practically countless, times I have imagined since what I could have done to avoid opening that door that day. I could have foreseen that there was a danger of this man visiting my apartment unannounced and made sure that anytime I took a bubble bath I kept my cell phone near me and on silent so that if he ever tried to knock, having seen my car and knowing I was not far away, I could have kept perfectly quiet in the tub and responded to any text messages saying I was on a hike at a nearby nature preserve and that I was about to lose batteries and/or reception. But, even then, what would I do if he waited at the door so long that he would see me when I headed off to work? I don’t know.

Of course, I could have devoted more of my morning to praying. I do not remember how I began that day, but, knowing myself, I very well may have studied spiritual concepts in the morning, but, maybe if I had done more I would have been more in tune with my intuition and known not to answer the door or I would have had the presence of mind not to feel frozen or overpowered but empowered and in-faith enough to stand up for myself and rebuke Jordan.

I still remember so clearly practically my very first thought after he abused my body that morning: Maybe at least he will stop hunting me.

Perhaps worse than any other seeming effect of this moment, I found myself – after so many months of trying to protect myself from Jordan, trying to move to a new city, and trying to insulate my life from improper domination by him – finding it feeling almost impossible to process what I felt he’d stolen that I imagined he would somehow realize how wrong what he had done had been and apologize profusely, that I would still only have ever had that experience with one person and that I would never have to face the fact that I had succumbed, even if it was one of the most terrifying experiences I’d ever had.

On Bribery, Speculation,

Many attempts have been made by corporations to co-opt the opportunity women in journalism, miraculously, were given to speak about safety within media corporations, I believe, by simultaneously listening to our own hearts. (I personally felt almost like God had moved heaven and earth to make this opportunity possible – one I don’t think I ever imagined I’d be given.) And I believe these have gone on to include such organizations’ forays into other social justice movements.

While it remains to be seen whether the American branch of the royal family’s Netflix and Spotify deals will harm African American rights to the degree I still feel the Nashville/Hollywood starlets who co-opted the women’s movement in journalism arguably harmed women in journalism, I believe all social justice movements and what could be termed the funhouse mirror of corporate media interpretation need to be disentangled. Still, this does not mean the sequence of awakening to a greater sense of the importance of human rights, nor journalism organizations’ essential role in it, need end.

Perhaps, of course, celebrities’ contributions to social justice movements may, at times, have their place. Maybe their voices are part of the order of things. But I still wonder whether it really is possible for anyone who accepts a hundred-million-dollar communications corporation contract without allowing those women journalists she seems to be purporting to represent to be heard to be the good guy. I don’t know.

Maybe the sequence can still be: women’s movement, African American rights movement, and then (hopefully, now) corporate media business model reform?

Corporate media wokeness is, after all, arguably not always even an attempt to raise, but it is sometimes, rather, an attempt to reduce awareness of problems harming the country, and world; and, especially as explicit expressions of race- and religion-based hatred have come to the surface, it may be worth articulating that corporate media wokeness is not always an expression of love but may better resemble its opposite.

And Investment

I read recently about an assertion by a modern-day media mogul influencer, in quoting poet Maya Angelou that “each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”

But I’m not so sure.

Maybe that is the paradox of leadership. Leaders, one could argue, press for the equalization of opportunity and the advancement of society to better account for human nature even while human nature, hopefully, improves. But the leader may not just argue to raise her level of privilege to that experienced by those who seem to be more advantaged than she but could, instead, genuinely raise her voice on behalf of those who may seem to have less than she.

A leader is much less likely to work broken systems, in other words, than to work to change them. To be a leader, a person may need to, at least temporarily, rise above human nature.

I’ve often wondered why it is that it does feel important to share how devastating the blind eye media corporations turn toward women’s basic human rights can be – and it does feel important. But, perhaps, it is simply part of the order of healing.

I’ve written before about how healing it has been, for me at least, to learn about the importance of avoiding what is sometimes termed a spiritual bypass in healing.

Today I read a promise translated by a Bible teacher I admire:

God is mighty and faithful to save, to deliver, to heal, and restore what the enemy has stolen.

As hard as it is to say, or to write, it may be necessary to, in forgiveness and fearlessness, acknowledge that something does seem to have been stolen, knowing God can and will redeem.

I hope that it is alright for me to say so, but I don’t believe God wants us to hate-obey like resentful self-labotomizing robots but, knowing exactly what we’re doing, gratefully grab the opportunity to honor the Father who graded us on a curve when we made the dumbest mistake of our lives with the best intentions, or when we made even bigger errors. Not because we have to do what He says, but because we’re in Love.

Since the day I described above, I’ve spent much of my full time looking for a new career, which has been difficult (not to mention expensive), because production is such a good fit for my gifts and interests. And, as comfortable as I was before agreeing to work for the Larry King Live group, I don’t think I’ve ever once again felt able to afford afford so much as a modest studio apartment.

In organizations within which women are treated as full human beings, not only are such situations not only avoidable, but the fullness of women’s gifts and talents, developed in safety, can help propel and steer the world forward. Even today, while I do not know whether the solution I have proposed is right, I believe it very likely may be right, and that my perspective matters.

On Qualities and Qualifications

To return to the thought with which I began this post, another thing I love about real pioneers, like astronauts, is that they are selected, rather than on the basis of what, in television news, is called “the look,” family ties, dating relationships, or marriage status, but because they are qualified.

Given these standards for navigation, who would willingly allow anything less for those in media corporations who are, arguably, not only in the cockpit of our precious nation today but are literally steering the country?

No one.