Thread by @KendraWrites, Working for The New York Times.https://twitter.com/historyofarmani/status/1290484329580130306 I became a journalist because I [...]

Working for The New York Times. https://twitter.com/historyofarmani/status/1290484329580130306

https://twitter.com/historyofarmani/status/1290484329580130306

I became a journalist because I wanted to tell stories that held truth to power, that punched up not down, that provided people with the information and the context to help create healthy sustainable societies that had successfully navigated climate change.

There are so many stories that I don't tweet, because they aren't my stories to tell. And because I don't want my professional brand to be "hates the New York Times," in part because I don't think the issues I faced are Times specific.

The great "media reckoning," that is happening is because national media overall is very white, very affluent, and the biases that come with not being very representative of the people who we are supposed to represent.

In grad school, the graduate program that NYT conveniently left off of my bio when they announced me because it's small and not prestigious, we talked a lot about the periphery and the core. It's an econ concept that's summarized here: https://www.thoughtco.com/core-and-periphery-1435410

How Does the Core-Periphery Theory Divide the World's Countries?

The world can be divided into a core and periphery, with the core containing most of the wealth and the periphery most of the population.

https://www.thoughtco.com/core-and-periphery-1435410

If you've read the Hunger Games that's a classic periphery and core model. The Capitol is the core - all of the wealth and political power. The districts were the periphery. The closer the district was to the Capitol the more power it had, but it was still subject to the Games.

But the thing is, as we learn in Book 3, the Capitol itself had its own periphery and core. Peace keepers were residents of the Capitol (the core) who didn't have enough money.

The Times is the core. The class, race, and political interests are structurally white and rich.

That doesn't mean that every article is in service to those interests. It means the overall tilt of it is. It can be "socially progressive" only to the point that you don't undermine that broad periphery core model. And this is true for *most* national media.

It's a lot of fucking rich people. Old money rich. "My family invested in a man named Edison rich"

And it's white people who have not interrogated their biases so you get editors that say things like "I can't be biased I attend the unconscious bias training every year"

Which as someone who has done nothing but spent her personal and professional life constantly interrogating her biases made for a maddening work experience.

It meant carefully crafting a sentence about how the Federal government placing Native Americans on reservations put them at disproportionate risk for wildfires, turned into a concession sentence about "systemic inequities," and having that turned into "trapped in poverty."

I could go on with the examples, but I won't because I want to share a story that is half mine and half not mine. But I think the person whose story is not mine would not mind me telling this.

So this time last year I was not in a good place.

My friends were begging me to quit. But I refused. I wanted/needed to make it at least two years. I turned down two offers to interview from other national media.

I cannot remember exactly when, if it was December or January of this year but I was taking the train home....

TW!

I was not feeling unusually emotional, and I asked myself what will it be like if you are at NYT in a year? And a voice clear as a bell, and matter of fact, was like "You won't be at NYT in a year because if you are you will have killed yourself"

Shortly after I started looking for a therapist. I found one. Started a conversation and then... never went.

I didn't start seeing him (and he's been great!) until I quit. And only after I quit did I understand why (I swear there's a payoff coming).

I waited so long. In our very first conversation I told him, I was afraid if I started to see you, you'd make me feel good enough that I wouldn't need to quit.

And it turns out that his office used to be by NYT's office so he's seen a lot of NYT employees. And he told me.

That usually he has to convince employees that they're in a prison of their own making. That they can actually leave, and I'd already done the hard part.

Here's the twist (that is not my story). I mentioned this to a media acquaintance. They told me that they'd been...

interviewing at NYT and mentioned it to their therapist- a different random Manhattan therapist. And their therapist had told them that NYT is a toxic workspace for a lot of people, and was my acquaintance sure that employment there would be in keeping with good mental health.

I don't know how else to say that a media environment that is mainly "healthy" for white, affluent, hetero mostly men, is unhealthy for democracy.

If you're wondering how we got to this present moment, well the press is at least partly to blame.

Two final thoughts: I'm in a really, really good place now.

A few people have discussed what I posted as suicidal ideation. This is incorrect. Ideation involves thinking and planning. I did neither. A friend described it as a moment of "primal self-preservation."

I tend to call it "the voice in my head."

I had a lot of "career" reasons not to quit. This voice was saying none of that shit mattered. It was right.

This distinction matters because like IDK if I was experiencing ideation I could have held it together to do job interviews.

I don't want people in acute mental distress to look at me and be like, "well she did it."

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