Seattle feminist writer was served up as target for Breitbart

Writer Lindy West performs onstage at the Larkin Comedy Club during Colossal Clusterfest at Civic Center Plaza and The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on June 4, 2017 in San Francisco. Writer Lindy West performs onstage at the Larkin Comedy Club during Colossal Clusterfest at Civic Center Plaza and The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on June 4, 2017 in San Francisco. Photo: FilmMagic Photo: FilmMagic Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Seattle feminist writer was served up as target for Breitbart 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

Lindy West, one of Seattle's most prominent feminist voices, was served up to Breitbart News firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos by a writer for a feminist website, according to an explosive report from Buzzfeed News.

After obtaining a trove of emails and other documents, Buzzfeed's Joseph Bernstein outlined the efforts once-and-current Breitbart co-founder -- and former Trump White House adviser -- Steve Bannon made to legitimize the alt-right movement and turn Yiannopoulos into a "conservative media star."

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The piece identifies people inside and outside the movement who fed stories to Yiannopoulos for publication on the site. Included in this was Mitchell Sunderland, a senior staff writer at Broadly, Vice's women's website.

In a May 2016 email to Yiannopoulos, Sunderland linked to a New York Times column by West, telling Yiannopoulos, "Please mock this fat feminist." Sunderland also sent at least one Broadly article he found objectionable to Yiannopoulos so it could be mocked by Breitbart.

"We are shocked and disappointed by this highly inappropriate and unprofessional conduct," a Vice spokesperson said in a statement to Buzzfeed. "We just learned about this and have begun a formal review into the matter."

Sunderland was reportedly fired on Friday.

In January, West wrote that she was deactivating her Twitter account after enduring constant harassment.

"I am micromanaged in real time by strangers; neo-Nazis mine my personal life for vulnerabilities to exploit; and men enjoy unfettered, direct access to my brain so they can inform me, for the thousandth time, that they would gladly rape me if I weren't so fat," she wrote in The Guardian.

West wrote for Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger from 2009 to 2012. Her 2016 book, "Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman," was a New York Times bestseller and is being adapted for television. She is currently a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times.

Reporter Stephen Cohen can be reached at 206-448-8313 or stephencohen@seattlepi.com. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @scohenPI.