Deez Interviews by proxy: reporting on sexual assault

Today, in lieu of a Deez Interview, I recommend reading two behind-the-scenes-y looks at two reporters who’ve broken hugely important stories in sexual harassment/assault beat: Jodi Kantor, who worked on the Harvey Weinstein for the NYT talks to Slate about it here, and Jim DeRogatis, who broke the R. Kelly story with BuzzFeed, gets profiled in the Chicago mag here.

There are definite common themes to how both writers handled such hugely contentious stories involving such hugely powerful men in our culture: patience, doggedness, access to a crack legal team.

But it was also interesting to compare their experiences — Kantor noted how many of her sources were only willing to tell their stories to a woman reporter, while DeRogatis’ longtime pursual of the Kelly story was apparently driven by his unorthodox rock critic ethos.

It seems that, statistically, if you’re a reporter today, you’ll inevitably end up reporting on sexual assault and harassment in some form — in politics, culture, education, what have you — so I’d love to see some kind of handy dandy best practices guide. The stakes for getting the story right have never been so high.

That’s it for this week! We’ll see you Monday.

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