Tensions Build In NPR Newsroom Over Handling Of Sexual Harassment Allegations

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NPR CEO Jarl Mohn apologized to angered staffers in a contentious meeting Friday afternoon even as additional women accused the network's former top news executive of sexually harassing them.

"I've let you down," Mohn said, according to people present. "I should have acted sooner and I should have acted more forcefully."

Mohn conceded Friday that he had not taken warning signs in previous years and previous days seriously enough. Only on Tuesday — once The Washington Post published two accusations from unnamed women dating back nearly two decades — did Mohn suspend NPR's senior vice president for news, Michael Oreskes.

Mohn forced Oreskes to resign the next day, after I also reported that Rebecca Hersher had filed a formal complaint of sexual harassment in October 2015 when she was a 26-year-old assistant producer. She alleged that Oreskes had converted a work conversation about her aspiration to become a reporter into a drawn-out dinner over a bottle of wine, with extended exploration of her personal life.

It wasn't the only internal red flag. Two veteran editors told me that they separately approached NPR's human resources department in late September 2016. In urgent conversations, they conveyed that so many journalists were concerned about Oreskes' treatment of women that they warned new female staffers to keep their distance. In separate interviews, each told me they had told NPR's human resource officials that Oreskes had created a toxic workplace in the newsroom.

(One of the editors also told me of having conveyed concerns to a senior network lawyer; the other reported telling a senior news executive, who replied that the matter was being investigated.)

Neither had specific instances they could point to, and both said that their colleagues' perceptions were shaped by Hersher's experiences. One, however, told NPR's human resources department that a second colleague might have been harassed by Oreskes as well.

In October 2016, just a few weeks later, a woman told NPR that Oreskes had forcibly sought to kiss her in the late 1990s, when he was the Washington bureau chief at The New York Times. A few weeks ago, a second woman lodged a separate and similar complaint. At that time, Mohn told staffers on Friday, executives started to take action and informed the chairman and vice chairman of the network's board of directors.

"The Times takes all allegations of sexual harassment seriously and we are looking into it," said a spokeswoman for The New York Times. "We're not aware of other complaints."

A lack of trust in reporting mechanisms and leadership

At the meeting on Friday, Mohn confirmed that objections had been raised generally in September 2016. The CEO also acknowledged that he did not suspend or oust Oreskes until shortly after the Post story ran, citing the two unnamed women accusing Oreskes of harassing them as they sought job opportunities at the Times.

NPR executives declared the session on Friday to be off the record, saying they wanted to allow female employees to share personal accounts if they wished. (At least two women did so, according to people present.) As a result, I did not attend the all-staff meeting, so I relied on the accounts of six people who did participate as the basis of my reporting on the meeting.

Media NPR Management Under Fire Over Sexual Harassment Scandal NPR Management Under Fire Over Sexual Harassment Scandal Listen · 3:46 3:46

A request from Mohn to staff on Oct. 20 to report any incidents of inappropriate behavior yielded no concrete responses. Some people at the meeting told Mohn that was because they did not trust they would be taken seriously. In recent days, Mohn acknowledged, five other women have filed new formal complaints against Oreskes with NPR. At the session, two female staffers told Mohn that they no longer trusted him to lead the network.

Nine women have spoken to me about their experiences with Oreskes, on condition their names not be made public. Several still work at NPR. The incidents span a decade, involving women in their 20s, 30s and 50s. Their interactions with Oreskes often started with an approach on social media — private messages on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Some of those messages were preserved and shown to me. In several cases, they began cordially and become presumptuously intimate.

Each woman spoke to me separately, but many gave closely coinciding accounts of how conversations on mentoring quickly turned personal and carried implications of romance or sex. Two women said they decided not to pursue jobs at NPR as a result of Oreskes' behavior. Others said they refused to be alone with him.

Women describe Oreskes' pattern of pressure

Some of the incidents, in isolation, might not appear consequential. They do not rise to the level of severity of the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, the late Roger Ailes or Bill O'Reilly, who are among the most notorious media figures accused of harassing women. Yet taken together, the allegations involving Oreskes paint an ominous picture of an executive willing to abuse his authority to take advantage of younger women in the field of journalism.

Here are six examples:

In 2007, a woman then in her late 20s says she sought employment at the New York Times-owned International Herald-Tribune, where Oreskes was executive editor. In conversations by email, in person and by phone, she said, it proved impossible to keep the tone professional. She quelled her hopes and stayed away.

In 2011, a freelancer then in her late 30s who has written for The New York Times, NPR and other major outlets says Oreskes pursued sexually charged conversations online with her, including some I have seen. She showed me an email she sent to an NPR editor when Oreskes' appointment was announced in early 2015, warning: "INTERNS WATCH OUT."

Around the Nation A Look At Workplace Policies Meant To Prevent Sexual Harassment A Look At Workplace Policies Meant To Prevent Sexual Harassment Listen · 4:06 4:06

An NPR reporter, then 25, told me she called Oreskes in August 2016 to talk about improving her standing when offered a job to go elsewhere. After she told Oreskes, she was about to visit a relative in Connecticut, he invited her for drinks at his family's beach house there, suggesting they could continue the conversation over wine. She did not follow up and kept her distance afterward.

Also last year, a former NPR editor in her 30s says she was pressured by Oreskes to meet for dinner after she asked for career guidance. She had been interested in exploring a second stint at NPR as well. The then-NPR news chief made it clear after the conclusion of the dinner that he had all night to spend with her. She decided not to apply to NPR and says she found the experience bewildering as she tried to sort out whether what she had experienced was truly sexual harassment.

An NPR producer in her 50s recalled a moment earlier this year when Oreskes placed his open palm on her stomach as he passed by, in what she considered a strong, lingering caress.

This past summer, an unemployed broadcast journalist in her 30s says that she received messages from Oreskes on Facebook and that he kept pushing for drinks and dinners. She concluded that such socializing was the price of his mentoring but thought it inappropriate. She says he asked her about past relationships, told her he would fall asleep thinking of her and one night walked her home. She returned to her apartment alone and decided against applying to NPR because there would be an expectation of a physical involvement. "I knew it was leading in that direction," she told me. "I didn't want to go there for a job."

"Our intention was honorable. The execution was poor."

These episodes, with one exception, were reported to NPR's HR department only in the past few days.

However, many women at the all-staff meeting Friday told Mohn that he had had more than enough information to act upon earlier.

According to attendees, Mohn said he and the network's chief counsel, Jonathan Hart, sat down with Oreskes last month to discuss the two older allegations from his tenure at The New York Times. Because many of the internal warnings centered on rumor rather than specific incidents, NPR's leadership did not feel it could act more severely, Mohn said. It had no concrete proof he had overstepped the boundaries articulated after the rebuke stemming from the internal complaint filed in October 2015.

In that way, Mohn said, he hewed too closely to legal guidelines and did not adequately take into account the human repercussions.

"Our intention was honorable," Mohn said. "The execution was poor. It didn't work."

Mohn pledged to work to rebuild the trust of his employees and asked for their aid in repairing its culture.