Twitter Thread
June 14, 2021
Phenomenal reporting from @asiakmfields and @JackieVarriano on Edouardo Jordan in Seattle: “Edouardo Jordan, acclaimed Seattle chef, accused by 15 women of sexual misconduct or unwanted touching.”
Full disclosure: In 2019, I reported a Food & Wine story about “great restaurants to work for.” We included @JuneBabySeattle. This was not an investigative piece. We did not talk to workers; we talked to the restaurateurs. You can see why that falls short.
I did the piece b/c I needed money, I liked the editor, and I had grand visions of identifying ways of improving the industry. Pushing restaurateurs to do better. It was a “work from the inside” model of change. At best, it was naive. I knew better. I should have done better.
To be clear, *we already know* how to make restaurant jobs better: Pay workers a living wage and don’t sexualize them. (Also, stop…following your subordinates home and talking to them about your marriage in a bid for sympathy that may lead to sex? JFC.)
To really know what happens at a workplace, you have to talk to the workers. That is expensive and time consuming. The story concept at F&W far outstripped the resources available to report it thoroughly. I knew that. I proceeded anyway.
All of which is to say: I’m sorry for putting my name on work that lent respectability to workplaces I’d never visited, and whose workers I’d never talked to. That’s a mistake and compromise I won’t make again. I’m truly sorry for the harm that’s come to people because of it.
NOTE: The resources required to assess a workplace *are phenomenal.* (Which, btw, is why government abdicating its role as enforcer of protections is so horrible.) The ST reporters started the Jordan story in *Jan 2020.* That’s ONE workplace.
Now think about assessing 18, 19, 20 workplaces? Forget it. Even a full-time staff writer isn’t paid enough to do that work.
