It Takes A Village To Stop A Predator: Jian Ghomeshi and Canadian Media’s “Open Secrets”

Earlier this week, the CBC announced that it was letting go of popular longtime Q host Jian Ghomeshi in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct from a growing number of women. The CBC's decision—and Ghomeshi's own written response, crafted with the help of powerhouse crisis PR firm Navigator that insists all allegations boil down to "extreme" but ultimately consensual kink and a jilted ex—has led to many necessary conversations about consent and BDSM, sexual predation, rape culture, and the law.

It's also, of course, brought up questions around why said crimes would have gone unreported; a legion of Ghomeshi's fans are casting doubt on the claims for largely this reason. Never mind that, statistically, the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults go unreported. Doubt begets doubt.

Which leads me to suggest we talk about the media industry. Let's talk about closed circuits and small ponds.

But first, let's talk about Canada.

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Canada is not big. It's so decidedly not-big, in fact, that if you meet someone on holiday who asks you, “Oh hey, do you know my friend so-and-so?” when they find out where you live, there's a better than joke-level chance that you have a Facebook friend or two in common. (The last time one of my American high school pals asked a Canadian if he happened to know me, while the two bumped along Washington state in a Craigslist-facilitated rideshare, the other guy turned out to be my Toronto roommate.) Even Toronto gets dubbed Smallronto, a village that just happens to contain almost three million people, where it's hard to feel legitimately anonymous if you hang around long enough. I know a full handful of people who've skipped town completely to avoid running into their exes.

It's important to consider the size of Canada and its correspondingly itty-bitty media industry, of which I—like Mr. Ghomeshi and several of his accusers—happen to be a part. It means when there are open secrets, many more of us as a whole are complicit in harbouring them.

Nobody has expressed this better than Winnipeg Free Press reporter Melissa Martin, who wrote in her personal blog about the trail of cautioned whispers left in Ghomeshi's wake since he entered public life in the '90s. “Do You Know About Jian?” people would ask. Martin admits that, yes, she did.

I “knew about Jian” too, though not to the sordid and gruesome extent that I do now. What I did know was that he was another one of Those Guys who felt entitled to cross boundaries with young women because, frankly, nobody cared to stop him. I wasn't surprised that two of the women to come forward with allegations of harassment against Jian were fellow CBC employees; I'd heard the stories about awkward elevator rides with him in the broadcaster's headquarters and encounters at professional events.

But I also, like so many others, knew and know about Casual Neck Kisser and Intern Chaser and my young female friends in media who keep running checklists of all the older men in positions of professional power to avoid at cocktail parties. I've watched myself age out of one perennial creep's chase list as other, younger, yet-unwarned industry newbies took my place. And I've watched my friends' running checklists—and my own—grow.

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It's striking to me that, any time I've visited a journalism school classroom in the past five years, the room has been dominated by young women. Women, I'm convinced, are the future of the industry. You'd never guess it looking at the male names at the top of a majority of print mastheads, or the leading editorial positions for major national outlets that continue to be given to (often unexpected) male candidates instead of the women who would be equally well-suited—and, in some specific cases, much better—to the task. The old boys' club might now be a middle-aged boys' club, but damned if we women are ever going to be given our share of seats at the table (even as the “table” comes to resemble something more like a row of milk crates half-assedly set on the floor).

Sexism and rape culture, of course, exist outside of the media industry. Sexual assault is messy and difficult to prove, fraught with shame on the part of its victims. Ghomeshi's (to paraphrase Navigator's very well-crafted statement) “bitches be crazy” defence is a stance being widely echoed by his supporters. It's no wonder these crimes seldom go reported; as Martin also states in her blog post, I probably wouldn't go through the trouble either.

But, while rape culture exists outside of closed loops and small ponds, there's a greater incentive to keep quiet and play nice where professional decorum and a small community coexist. The industry is a village, with all its gossip and friendship and open secrets. And while it doesn't take a village to raise a predator, it will to stop one.

It Takes A Village To Stop A Predator: Jian Ghomeshi and Canadian Media’s “Open Secrets” by Kelli Korducki | Chart Attack.