Last week we discussed Mark Halperin, a journalist, author and on-air correspondent for several TV news shows. Halperin is perhaps most famous for co-authoring Game Change, the insider-y account of the 2008 election, which was later made into an Emmy-winning HBO movie. Halperin, it seems, was also well-known within certain media communities for being a serial sexual harasser, for being a creep and a sexist douchebag. After the initial stories came out about Halperin’s troubling history when he worked at ABC News, more women came out – he’s now being accused of harassing and/or groping more than a dozen women, and it went well beyond his time at ABC News. The Daily Beast also had a story about how Halperin targeted college undergrads who were seemingly looking for a mentor in journalism. Ugh.
Halperin had a contract with NBC News – he was at first suspended and then fired outright as an analyst. He’s been pushed off his Showtime show, HBO canceled plans to do another show with him and basically… no one wants to work with him or employ him in any way. On Friday, Halperin issued a more thorough statement:
The journalist took to Twitter on Friday afternoon to issue a statement saying he was “profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish” he caused with “past actions.”
“The world is now publicly acknowledging what so many women have long known: Men harm women in the workplace,” Halperin said in the statement. “For a long time at ABC News, I was part of the problem. I acknowledge that, and I deeply regret it. As I said earlier in the week, my behavior was wrong. It caused fear and anxiety for women who were only seeking to do their jobs.” Halperin claimed in the statement that he “closely read the accounts of women with whom I worked at ABC News,” claiming he was not looking for “discrepancies or inconsistencies,” but rather “in every case, I have recognized conduct for which I feel profound guilt and responsibility, some involving junior ABC News personnel and women just starting out in the news business.” He went on to “fully acknowledge and apologize for conduct that was often aggressive and crude.”
Halperin said, “I recognized I had a problem” toward the end of his tenure at ABC News, though “no one had sued me” or “filed a human resources complaint against me.” He claimed he had “weekly counseling sessions to work on understanding the personal issues and attitudes that caused me to behave in such an inappropriate manner.”
I have no problem with his apology just as a stand-alone statement – I mean, he sounds more remorseful than Harvey Weinstein, although that’s setting the bar way too low. It’s one thing to say that Halperin deserves to be shunned for harassing and assaulting women for years – and to be clear, he deserves to be shunned, if not sued into oblivion – but we also need to take a moment and assess how a man like Mark Halperin drives political narratives too. What I mean is that he was an influential political analyst for years, doing commentary and analysis on all of the major political stories of the past 20 years. Now that we know he was a serial harasser and sexual assailant during that same time, can we look back and reassess his “takes” on various political stories? Rebecca Traister at New York Magazine did just that, in a piece called “Our National Narratives Are Still Being Shaped by Lecherous, Powerful Men.” On Halperin, Traister writes:
They are also the men with the most power to determine what messages get sent about politicians to a country that then chooses between those politicians in elections. Mark Halperin co-authored Game Change, the soapy account of the 2008 election (excerpted in this magazine), which featured all kinds of history-making candidates who were not powerful white men. Halperin’s view of Hillary Clinton in particular was two-dimensional: Through his lens, she was a grasping and scandal-plagued woman; her exaggerated misdeeds and the intense feelings she engendered were all part of propelling his profitable narrative forward. His coverage of Trump, meanwhile, in this last campaign cycle, was notably soft, even admiring: Halperin once argued that the sexual-assault claims leveled at Trump would only help the now-president’s brand.
As I said with the Weinstein stuff, my mind was blown when I really started thinking about how many careers Weinstein had destroyed or hampered over the years as a form of sexual retaliation against many, many women. Now think about that with political journalism, how we assess political stories, who drives political narratives and more. The media failed over and over and over again during the 2016 election cycle, and the media continues to fail today, and this is one of the reasons why.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
“The media failed over and over and over again during the 2016 election cycle, and the media continues to fail today, and this is one of the reasons why.”
I feel like burying my head in Shambles’ bathtub of vodka…
Excellent post.
Well, Sarah Palin came across horribly in his book. Do we change how we feel about her too then?
I don’t think so. Being a woman and a dumb asshole are not mutually exclusive.
But he didn’t just make her look dumb, which yep she is, he made her look power hungry.c shallow, fame thirsty and all about herself. That the second she got a little fancy makeup and Designer clothes she was a monster. Now I dispise all Sarah palin stands for and believes but the idea that she somehow horrible and worthless because she liked looking nice and Mitt Romney, Joe Biden aren’t for the same is wrong. Also that she was disgraceful for wanting the job when all the men where Nobel?
Sarah palin is ill informed, she is closed minded, and imo not very smart but Helprin painted her as a diva.
And while it might be true I do think it is worth questioning some of his attacks. I think attacks on Palin’s qualifications, understanding and readiness for the job are all 100% valid. The ones about her liking hair and make up and the crowds not so much.
That being said I do wonder what the 30 years plus of attacks from men like these on Hillary abs just women in politics and public life have done to our over all perception. The article was a real eye opener.
What’s really coming across to me is that the Important People are far, far worse than Joe Public, whilst deflecting and projecting all their own dysfunction onto Joe Public.
“I’m going to write an article and denounce all those troglodyte construction workers for catcalling women from building sites. They are revolting, knuckle draggers from a bygone age, unlike myself, who am the wokest of woke.”
All the while, groping and harassing female colleagues and workplace inferiors under threat of ruining their careers if they don’t comply. Better a wolf whistle than a ruined career, however obnoxious wolf whistling is.
Clearly exemplified by the Orange Idiot with his Mexican rapists and grab ’em by the pussy. Just marginally less obvious and a lot more widespread.
I really don’t know what to make of his apology. I want to believe people can change and see through their abuse. Many abusers do feel guilt once they recognize their abuse. But in public cases it’s hard to say how sincere the apologies are.
without harsh angry personal attacks, I ask of you all…
Am I the only one that , despite the crazy ass shit that has been coming out in the last few weeks (cough cough days, hours!!), sees all this as a long term very positive thing? That the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ mentality of men behaving badly might be coming to an end? having been sexually harassed, I remember statements made to me, like, “Adele, you will never win this fight, no one will believe you and your career will be ruined,” I hope that maybe, just maybe, my daughter and the young women of the future won’t have to ‘shut up and move on,’ as I did.
Am I crazy? Or is Mueller time making me a rose colored glasses idiot/optimist?
I am like you, I think something has turned, critical mass, tipping point …
Public opinion and society s point of view has shifted a bit further towards acknowledging the pervasiveness of sexual harassment/assault. It is now a thing and it will change everything.
Avoidance, blind ear, minimization have stopped being the easy solutions that until now, were enough to shut things down and make everybody accomplice.
But you know what stops me from saying it loud and clear?
I am just too afraid of hoping.