Opening a Letter
Two, actually. My ignored #MeToo missives to James Queally of the Los Angeles Times
On February 24th 2020, Harvey Weinstein was convicted of felony sex crimes in a Manhattan court room. Far from New York City, here in Los Angeles, where Harvey lorded over Hollywood for the better part of three decades, the news of his conviction was a headline story in the Los Angeles Times. The photograph above is that headline as it appeared in the print edition of the newspaper. It credits #MeToo and apparently the climate created by the world-wide response to the movement for seeding the landscape that made an iconic entertainment industry mogulβs conviction on rape charges possible. I would certainly agree.
That was after all, from the beginning, really both the hope and the purpose of #MeToo. I know that because it was my hope and purpose for #MeToo when I wrote those two small but so powerful words in my New York Times comment to Lena Dunhamβs Weinstein-related OP-ED. Iβd hoped that public outrage upon learning just how many women had been victims of sexual predation in Hollywood over so many decades that that outrage would translate into real consequences for those who use their power in the entertainment industry to lure, manipulate, bully, and ultimately prey upon young people pursuing their creative destinies in Hollywood.
Of course you would know if youβve read any of my other pieces here on my Substack pages that Iβve had a very difficult time getting the New York Times or any other mainstream media publication to acknowledge and report on my role in triggering the #MeToo movement that exploded as a result of the Weinstein allegations as they were unfolding in October of 2017. Now, all these many years later, in my mind, the fact that the totality of the mainstream legacy news media, led by the New York Times, has so rigidly ignored my very existence is now, for me, a bigger and more important news story than even the fact that Iβd called for #MeToo. Something about coverups being worse than the initial transgressions.
But when I saw reporter James Queallyβs headline in the Los Angeles Times essentially crediting my idea for working exactly as I had intended it to work I thought I would drop this young reporter an email letting him know who I was and where the idea that is #MeToo came from. I did that in the short email that you will find italicized below. In that email I do NOT reveal to Mr. Queally that I have been ignored by the New York Times or the mainstream media. Itβs not a letter of complaint. But when I receive no response from Queally at all I then did send a second email that details my complaints with whatever forces were (and still are) at work within the journalistic profession that dictates that I must be ignored. The remaining text in this piece contains both of my emails to James Queally.
Hello again, James.Β
I actually can't process that a major American newspaper reporter could ignore an email like I sent you last week but, by now, I should be used to it. But I think you or someone at the LATimes will read this and so as I've already invested my time and hope in you and your paper I'm going to try again. Just in case you didn't receiveΒ my lastΒ email I'm going to cut and paste it here now with my newer message to you to follow.ΒHello James.
You write in one of your Weinstein pieces that Harveyβs conviction is a validation of the #MeToo movement. You are certainly correct there. But did you know that #MeToo was actually called for in the comments section of a Weinstein piece on the NYTimes website five days before Alyssa Milano tweeted the idea?
The whole focus of the comment was Hollywood. Triggered by the yet unfolding Weinstein allegations. Conceived of in my kitchen on Robbins Drive in Beverly Hills for the sole purpose of bringing forth a public showing of hands of victims of sexual predation in Hollywood that might lead to the day when a Harvey Weinstein could be sent to prison.
All of which happened.
Here are the screen shots but if you canβt receive them where you are please go to the NYTimes website and search their archive for a piece by Lena Dunham titled βHarvey Weinstein and the Silence of the Men.β Youβll have to scroll quite some time but youβre looking for one by βjammerβ my long time internet username.
Thank you,
Donald Barnat
When I first heard that #MeToo had gone viral I went into shock. I was mostly trying to gather my thoughts in terms of what I was going to say when the phone calls came and reporters started camping outside my apartment. But if you know LA, you know that saying something as scathingly critical of the entertainment industry here, as I did in that comment, could have ramifications on a person's life and livelihood here. So I was concerned about that as well.Β
But nevertheless I did start to make some effort to get the truth about #MeToo to someone at the NYTimes. Again, remember, I was in shock. I can't even begin to describe the shock. So the first efforts were rather stupid. I posted more comments to a couple of follow up #MeToo pieces in the NYTimes telling what I'd done. I thought those comments were monitored and as my assertions in them were so important, I thought, I assumed that someone from the newspaper would contact me.Β
As you probably know, you have to be logged in to comment to articles.I was. I also was and am a paid subscriber to the NYTimes, as I am to your paper.Β
Obviously that didn't work. So I sent two emails to the Times' 'news desk' email address where you are assured that they will respond to every email they get. No response at all.When the Silence Breakers were announced as TIME's POTY I wrote a long piece on my blog.Β Β
I then sent one email each to Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the Times reporters who had broken the Weinstein story. Again, no response. A month or so later I sent them both another email and again received no response.Β
Since then, I've hammered the Times on Twitter, including both Kantor and Twohey, Ronan Farrow, the Times itself, relentlessly, for most of the last two and half years. It's as if I don't exist.Β
I'm sincerely hoping you're not also party to some ethos or conversation that says that under no circumstances should you ever respond to anything coming from that guy with the screengrabs.Β
You had the headline article last Tuesday, congrats, and that headline attached my two words to Harvey Weinstein's conviction. And, as I said in my last email to you, that was the whole idea behind #MeToo. My comment was posted to an Weinstein article for the purpose of raising the public's awareness of the scope of the problem of sexual misconduct in Hollywood through women coming forward behind those two words. And it worked, according to you and your paper and most every other paper in this country.ΒSo I'm going to bluntly tell you what I think is going on here. Why no one initially responded to me at the Times or on Twitter and something else, why no one else has and why, for instance, you're likely not sitting at your desk this very moment writing your response to the email I sent you last week.Β
The idea that a man could be responsible for one of the most important moments in the history of feminism is anathema to women. I believe the New York Times, Ms. Kantor and Ms. Twohey, the Times' editors etc. would have looked at what was happening with #MeToo around the world, and then looked at the fact that a half-cocked male comment writer on their website might emerge as the person who triggered all that as an impossible development and one that, if they published it, might hurt the movement and certainlyΒ hurt their own standing among women and the various factions of feminism.
And as the Times is where that comment was made, they control their end of it. I can Tweet from now till eternity. As long as they don't make a peep, no one is going to take me seriously. And that's really working quite well for them.Β
That explains the NYTimes. Now let me explain everyone else who has ignored me, including, I'm afraid, even you.Β
I don't have to tell you that journalism students are warned that people come out of the woodwork when big stories break to attach themselves to that story. I think people see this stuff from me on Twitter, Google #MeToo, go to the Wikipedia page, Google me, and when all of that, after two years, shows no connection between #MeToo and Donald Barnat, that's the end of the story for everyone and especially for professional journalists.ΒThe irony is that thing you're warned about in journalism school is exactly what happened. To all of you.Β And the entire mainstream of professional journalism missed it.Β
My comment was made on the 10/10/17. Five days later Alyssa Milano tweeted the comment and it went viral. Very viral. Tarana Burke saw that and reacted to it. She explains everything in the 10/19/17 Washington Post piece titled, The Woman Behind 'Me Too' Knew the Power of the Phrase When She Created it -- 10 Years Ago. by Abby Ohlheiser.Β"Tarana Burke was watching as #MeToo became an internet phenomenon Sunday. Soon, she started to panic. By the time celebrities were tweeting #MeToo, encouraging every woman who had survived sexual harassment or assault to do the same, Burke knew she had to do something. She didn't know where to begin."
That is the literal definition of someone watching a giant story unfold, completely independent of anything she had done or even her own existence (as I had never heard of her) and seeking to attach herself to that story.
She did not call for MeToo. I did. Five days before it happened. In a comment to an article about Harvey Weinstein and the sad state of affairs in terms of sexual misconduct by men in Hollywood. I was the person who conceived of that idea. And I was the person whose judgment said that 'what really needs to happen now" was Me Too.Β
Try to imagine what it must be like to have written that comment calling for Me Too to a Weinstein piece in October of 2017, and to come full circle now with seeing you, and so many others in so many publications and news broadcasts, crediting my idea for bringing Harvey Weinstein to justice.
I won't attach the screen grabs again as I'm concerned that your security software might block them. If you haven't already, go to the Lena Dunham article in the NYTimes entitled, Harvey Weinstein and the Silence of the Men. Go to the comments section. Scroll until you find one by jammer. That's me.Β
Please tell me how this isn't now an incredibly important story. That the New York Times has known for two and half years that one of their logged in subscribers called for a MeToo response from actresses in Hollywood five days before #MeToo happened. How about this? That a man was actually responsible for one of the most important moments in the modern history of progress for women.One more. That reporter after reporter, when presented with this information, including screen shots and instructions for finding the actual comment calling for MeToo, all decide that the proper response to being presented with this information is to completely ignore the person presenting it to them. Is that really how this journalism stuff works?
Thank you,
donald barnat