21 May Journalists and Activists
Since interviewing Maria Ressa recently for “Women’s Media Center Live with Robin Morgan,” I've been haunted more than usual by thoughts of my special sisters, women journalists. Ressa, a former CNN Bureau Chief, is one hell of a journalist, and founder of Rappler.com, an online news site under fierce attack by Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s authoritarian government. Me, I'm a journalist, yes, but. I'm also an activist, who believes that "objectivity" is usually subjective. And I'm basically a writer, one all over the map. My foundational rock is poetry. But having fallen in love with the English language and decided I wanted to be a "woman of letters" when I was about nine, I grew up into someone who writes novels, stories, plays, essays, editorials, works of feminist theory, political analyses, polemics, and any other form of writing I can lay hands on—from grocery lists to broadcast/podcast commentaries to, now,...