Name: Dana Bash and Andrea Mitchell Talk About The Challenges of Women Journalists
Uploaded: 2017-10-11
Duration: 6 min 6 s
Description: Nancy Gibbs spoke with Bash and Mitchell about trolling at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit.

At the height of the trolling that we were seeing. I did a poll of our newsroom at time about how men and women in the newsroom handled the responses to their journalism on social media. And more that half the women said they had considered leaving journalism. Wow .>> Because of the level of vitriol and often violent and the I am going to come hurt your children. I mean, I know where you live. Unbelievably ugly kinds of responses. And the men in [ INAUDIBLE ] room Were shocked and enraged by this and that they by and large were not having the same experience, and ordinarily I think we don't think in gendered ways about how we go about our work. We wanna get the story, we wanna tell the story, and yet that as a news leader really worried me. Me about how especially NBC [ UNKNOWN ] a large team of young women covering the campaign who came in to a huge amount, for a huge amount of this [ UNKNOWN ]. So the CNN it's have this, has this affected you when you see or do you, my husband bans me from reading my notifications. That's, I mean that's it, [ COUGH ] that's the deal and I really try not to If I read all of the notifications, I would never, I would be in a [ UNKNOWN ] position under the cardboards and never get out of bed, ever. I mean. I just don't, I can't. I can't barely keep up with what I absolutely have to read, I am in the situation where I have a daily program [ UNKNOWN ] responsibilities and broadcast side for [ UNKNOWN ] news today or . com. So I Don't have the ability to unplug unless I'm on some kind of vacation, and even then not really. That's ->> Here I'm betting -->> [ UNKNOWN ] that we have with all these platforms. With broadcast and cable and the online, I have the sort of disadvantage Of not having had children. So, I have other family obligations though, and that I feel very strongly. So but it's not anything comparable to what you guys have. What I don't read is the really mean spirited stuff, and to what you referred to The abuse that women experience online and in person in our business is appalling. Just read what Katy Tur has written in Unbelievable about what this woman, and we didn't reveal it during the campaign. It was quite obvious when you heard a stadium in Alabama shouting you know Epithets that Katie and the President, or the candidate, from the podium, demeaning and disparaging her and pointing her out from the stage, and we had to hire security, and at one point a Secret Service detail actually came and escorted her cuz the Trump reporters were in a pen. I was covering the Clinton team and we were constrained in other ways. But the The verbal abuse from the candidate and his followers in these large and often open- carry states. It's terrifying. So I can handle people calling me out and telling me how awful I look on social media. I'm a big Girl, I can take that. I also just want to bring up what we're now reading about Harvey Weinstein and the conspiracy of silence in the major industry. If you look back at what Tina Fey wrote and aired on 30 Rock five years ago, jokes about Harvey. Weinstein, Harrison and abusing women and how could this not have been known. It's just so women occupy a special place I think. Mm- hm. In this world of multimedia in which we take a whole lot and we just have to. Endure it. Endure it but also support each other. And speak out passionately about what women and in my case I had five really terrific younger women colleagues starting out in some cases in their career. Katie, for the first time covering politics. So I viewed it and also women from other media. On the trail with Hilary and I [ UNKNOWN ] as well I'm gonna take the hit, I can do it in terms of fighting for access in the Clinton campaign and fighting for security with the Trump people. And can I just add one thing to that, it is that there actually is a sisterhood, a real sisterhood at least in the, in our business Where we kind of rely on each other to deal with this. Some of my closest friends are Kelly O'Donnell with your network or Nancy Cortez with CBS. Because we can relate to one another, even though we're technically competitors on this level. And I think that says a lot about where we've come as women, because we don't have to be competitors with our sharp elbows. To the nth degree, but we can also kind of really be there for one another. And Andrea has really helped lead the way on that. And the women on the Hillary plane, I mean, the three networks as well as the others, the print people, we were all standing, the three network correspondents, we would be standing out on the tarmac at White Plains Airport in hideous weather, getting ready to do our morning shows. And we all run to the bathroom and try to get our hair together, sharing [ UNKNOWN ] and whatever we had. [ LAUGH ] While Nancy [ UNKNOWN ] would be on the phone telling her six year old, no, it's picture day. You've got to wear something proper- [ LAUGH ] And [ LAUGH ] Exactly. I mean, the juggling that went on, and this goes all the way back to Judy Woodruff and Cokie Roberts and I on the bus. You set the standards, you did. Back in those years. But it was really exponentially increased in this year because so many women were on the trail. And the intensity of it. And we just helped each other with everything.

Nancy Gibbs spoke with Bash and Mitchell about trolling at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit.