Dori: Seattle Times journalist jeopardizes career with harassing messages

When newspaper jobs are disappearing, you’d think that a person who had one of those coveted journalism positions, such as that of a Seattle Times reporter, wouldn’t blow up their career in the wee hours of the morning.

There is an online journalist on the East Coast named Talia Jane, who gained some notoriety a few years ago while working for Yelp, posting an open letter to the CEO about salaries. The letter got her fired but also got her some prestige. Talia, who is 29, has been freelance writing for the past few years.

Around 3 a.m. EDT Sunday morning, Seattle Times real estate reporter Mike Rosenberg, who has been at the paper for about three years, started sending private Twitter messages to Talia Jane. At first she didn’t reveal his identity. But as he got cruder and more coercive, she finally did.

RELATED: ‘Me Too’ inspired changes spreading from Olympia through state

He began by talking about her career, asking if she was applying to reporting jobs around the country. He sent her two messages back-to-back, telling her she was “so beautiful” and “hilarious.” She did not respond to them.

Forty minutes later, he sent the vilest sexual message to this young woman. I can’t even begin to describe how crude the sexually explicit message was. You can read about the exchange on Talia’s Twitter page, @itsa_talia. (Warning: sexually graphic language.)

At that point, Talia wrote back to him telling him how inappropriate he was being. He wrote back that it was an accident, that his messages were meant for someone else, and, “If I were you, I would kill me.”

She pointed out that there were 40 minutes in between the first two inappropriate messages and the vilest one, plenty of time for him to realize he was messaging the wrong person.

She asked him to show his wife the messages and delete his Twitter account, “so you can’t engage in predatory behavior behind the safety of a screen.” He wrote back that if he deleted his Twitter account, he’d get fired by The Seattle Times, and that if he showed his wife the messages, she’d be “devastated.”

Talia responded back to him, “Figure out how to handle your [expletive] like an adult without putting the onus on someone else to tell you how to act … I told you what you need to do. If you can’t handle the consequences of your actions, then you shouldn’t do them.”

He eventually deleted his Twitter account.

Talia Jane wrote on Twitter that the whole experience left her shivering, and that she had done nothing to invite his harassing advances.

i was having a really lovely night and now my whole body is so tense that i’m shivering. i’ve done nothing to encourage this or signal in any capacity that this behavior would be welcome. all i did wrong was exist!

— talia jane (@itsa_talia) May 5, 2019

At that point, she sent screenshots of the exchange to the editor of The Seattle Times, but did not make Mike Rosenberg’s name public on Twitter.

But then, Rosenberg sent her an email. He asked her not to out him, and promised to donate $1,000 to the National Organization for Women. This attempt to buy her silence prompted Talia to reveal his identity on Twitter, writing, “Women are not toys. We certainly should not be played with and efforts to manipulate us will not be tolerated.”

Don Shelton, the executive editor of The Seattle Times, wrote in an email to Talia that the Times had suspended Rosenberg and was starting an investigation. He said that he could not comment further on it because it is a personnel matter, but thanked Talia for bringing it to his attention.

Then Crosscut, which has some former Times journalists on staff, called Mike Rosenberg on the phone. He told them that he meant to send the messages to someone else whom he wouldn’t name, and that he couldn’t speak further because he was at the hospital. We don’t know what his exact reason for being at the hospital was.

These messages were flying across the country at 3 and 4 a.m. That begs the question: How far gone do you have to be not to realize that these actions will blow up your career and your marriage? The job of journalist is rapidly disappearing. People who are reporters tend to be very passionate about their careers and know that there aren’t many gigs out there.

I’ll be shocked if this guy, especially in the wake of the #MeToo era, ever gets a job in news again. I don’t know if it was alcohol-induced or drug-induced or mental illness, but in one regretful hour, he has blown up his life.

Follow @http://www.twitter.com/dorimonson