I am not sure about you, reader, but I’ve been noting recently how true it is that music really does seem to have the power to transport. After writing about a snippet of a highly produced compilation of Usher songs the other day, I realized I should probably watch the entire clip; and, perhaps because it’d been so long since I’d heard the melodies featured (who doesn’t love Usher?), I wasn’t prepared for feeling so … wrecked. For days I have felt such an undertow of memories pulling at me – even today – not to allow the erasure of lessons learned during my experience at CNN despite what have seemed to be concerted efforts to accomplish just that.

Something I feel I’ve learned the hard way is that, if a person experiences abuse at a corporation as influential as CNN, her career in media can seem practically over – not necessarily because of the company’s tendency to try to destroy her career, which is a major problem, but because of how heavy and consequential the knowledge of this practice can be, especially if one encounters impropriety at another media organization and no longer feels there is any use (or safety) in trying to address it helpfully. (In my case, I’ve written before, after it began to feel to me as if the whole of the journalism/political sector may be corrupt, it seemed for awhile like the only thing to do was to take some time to do work that had nothing to do with it, although my desire to return to my career never went away; and it tugs at me to this day.)

But, after one speaks about abuse in the corporate news industry, it is as if her career in any field can feel practically over as the pressure to find a way to be heard only seems to build even as all of one’s colleagues in other fields, who may not feel they can do anything to request a response from corporate media, bear witness to the attempt.

Having one’s career, and many aspects of her life, at the arguably most powerful name in news (and a name protected through the use of various tactics for silencing women) amputated by pockets of corruption within the organization – not only without anesthesia but without acknowledgment or remedy – can be particularly challenging even over the long term when, as in my case at least, a person experiences constructive, rather than formal, dismissal. I do realize how long it has been, but I thought of this this month when hearing several recently-dismissed anchors talk openly about their own experiences. Big names like Chris Cuomo, Tucker Carlson, and Don Lemon have, of course, talked about the difficulty of separating from these immense communications corporations, but in their cases, they have the benefit of some degree of acknowledgment of what occurred, as well as, crucially, financial security. (As put-together as my life felt during my early years at CNN, since the time I agreed to accept what turned out to be a combination job offer and marriage proposal from its Larry King Live division, I have felt terribly insecure financially.)

It is not even so much the memory of pain that seems to be hurting so much all of a sudden. It’s the memory of not pain – in addition to the collective pain of particular changes to my personal and professional life that happened all at once (I was considering changes at the time this all occurred in trying to move to a new city, considering future possibilities at other companies, and seeking to gain distance from and perspective on my relationship but nothing like the traumatic ways in which each of these aspects of my life seemed to be upended) it was the burden of, yes, feeling I had overridden my intuition (I have written already about how absolutely terrible this feels), but also knowledge about so many ongoing corrupt modes of operation within CNN and no clear way of addressing them.

Not long after I left CNN, its international desk, where I’d volunteered my weekends for so long, finally reached out to me about an opening to find out if I still lived in Atlanta and may be available; but, by that time, I had already relocated and felt unsafe at the thought of what CNN’s New York-dominated HR department might do next as I had seen and heard so much at that point.

I am editing this post at the moment and, as I type, the sun is rising outside. Just the sight of such beautiful morning light reminds me of all the times I loved watching the sun rise going into CNN early to work on the International Desk. Maybe I should have just waited longer for a job there to work out for me, but I don’t think so. (Years after leaving the talk show unit, I met with a colleague who’d stayed, working hard to find a way to escape the team while remaining at the company but finding his way blocked, even when he came close to what he’d felt was his dream job, at practically every turn. I believe he’d made approximately nine years of attempts before giving his notice and saying that, despite how shocking this was to people who couldn’t understand why anyone would leave CNN, it was hard for him to justify working for an organization that would even allow such a situation to exist. The reputations of corporations with mammoth PR departments don’t have much to do with the truth anyway.) And maybe I actually should have pursued trying to go back just weeks after leaving and before the window of opportunity seemed to close; I don’t know. But a question I still have is, what do I do now? And why does all this continue to feel so important to address?

The truth is, I’m still not entirely sure. It has been so long. And there have been other, arguably more major, problems and seeming injustices I have felt it right to simply let go in my life. But, as I have written before, I am guessing because of the harmful effects corruption at CNN (an organization where I adored my early years and I by no means believe is corrupt at its core) still seems to hold over the world, it still does feel much less like I am holding onto this issue than like it is holding onto me. So often I feel, in other words, like I am supposed to address it.

To this day, and all the time really, but particularly when I feel so immersed again in the memories of my life before my experiences with the Larry King Live organization or the corruption that seemed to take such terrible hold in a journalism industry I otherwise loved, it still feels as though my very identity, like a toddler I’m responsible for, is yelling at the top of her lungs asking that I still try to find a way to seek resolution and any way possible of making things right.

Even when I have a moment alone or of quiet, it feels so almost indescribably obvious to me that I should never have had to lose my career or the momentum of my life even for a moment, much less for literally years on end; and I am still writing in a hope of healing.

In any case I was reminded recently of my experience first arriving at this first corporate media job and being given a headquarters tour. Something that stood out to me was how jarring it felt, as I remember at least, to walk away from at least one executive’s suite and hear the dreaded whisper that he’d just left his pregnant wife. (If I recall correctly, this may have happened after two introductions.) And I still do not feel it has been communicated to the world how widespread gender-based inequity has been, at least so far as I have been able to tell, at CNN and its sphere of influence for so long and why that matters.

But I have felt heartened this week by the example of tech activist Alastair Mactaggard and his successful bid to better inform the public about – and protect the public from – large corporations despite immense odds.

Even the heart of an extraordinary pastor who talked about his and his church’s ability to move forward undestroyed after a human shield-wielding terrorist attempted to harm their individual and collective purposes felt relevant because, as I have written before, what has felt most difficult about trying to be heard about the topic of women’s rights in television news since its cooptation by corporate media itself has been what has seemed like news corporations’ use of the also-essential movement for advances in African American rights as a human shield to be used to prevent the public questioning of their ratings- and advertisement-based business models.

I loved what I heard one legislator say this week about the power of ideas whose time has come and believe that the matter of the journalism sector’s relationship to the stock market can still be addressed without harm to the movement for the advancement of African American rights.

Of course, it is important for us all to refuse the play the role of victim or perpetrator and to extend forgiving grace both to ourselves and to others where we seem to have fallen into these traps, but, increasingly, I do believe it is still important to call out systems (like the confederacy, not America, and like news corporations, not all of journalism) built on demographic-based predation. I believe we need to apply the golden rule to people, in other words, but, as I have written at length already, maybe not corporations.