This is a delicate topic and we would in no way dismiss anybody’s experience as a victim of sexual assault. But there is a difference between personal and private matters. Also, it is very possible for a journalist to be too close to a story and lose any semblance of objectivity. Should former CEOs cover their last firm? Should insurance execs cover malpractice stories?

Some journalism professors, groups & nonprofits are trying hard to redefine news reporting– teaching students/ young reporters that objectivity/ neutrality are outdated. It's not true. It's like your doctor saying diet & exercise are overrated. In fact, they're fundamental.

— Sharyl Attkisson🕵️‍♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) March 24, 2021

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As opposed to this publication of opinion, the Washington Post bills itself as a news outlet. Thus it has a responsibility, much abused there, to at least pretend to be objective. Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez’s personally embarrassing crying jag admission aside, her points are less about journalism and more about attention and self-proclaimed martyrdom. The initial Washington Post call was correct. Sadly, they have rescinded that policy under pressure from the usual suspects and they are a worse paper for it.

FNC: “Washington Post national political reporter Felicia Sonmez scolded her own employer Sunday, claiming management at the liberal newspaper barred her from covering sexual assault-related topics because she is a survivor under a now-reversed policy. ‘I do not feel supported by my employer,’ Sonmez wrote. Sonmez was suspended by the paper last year for sharing a 2016 story about 2003 rape allegations againt basketball star Kobe Bryant shortly after his death in a helicopter crash. At the time, the paper said the tweets ‘displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of her colleagues.’ The Post’s then-executive editor, Mary Baron, has since moved on and Sonmez explained that the ordeal came up during a recent session with her therapist.” Aren’t those sessions designed to be private?

Sonmez: “At one point, he asked me whether I feel supported by the Post’s current management, now that the editor who oversaw my suspension had retired. And I just burst into tears,” Sonmez wrote. That is an unnecessary and embarrassing admission for an adult.

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“It was the directness of his question that I think really caught me off guard. I’ve tried to keep my head down and just do my job the best I can, despite having to take myself off sexual assault-related stories at least once every week or two, sometimes even more often,” she wrote. She has no concept of objectivity, only of her own professional ambition.

“I faced no ban my first three months on the job. I wrote #MeToo-related stories with no problem. It was only once the Kavanaugh story broke in Sept. 2018 that the editors enacted one,” she continued. “It was lifted several months later, then reinstated in late 2019 when I was being attacked online after the publication of a story about the man who assaulted me. The ban has been in place ever since, for more than a year now…So I’ve just kept trying to do my job. But that question from my therapist forced me to acknowledge to myself that I do not feel supported by my employer,” she wrote. Is “feeling supported” in her contract or in the WaPo HR manual? If so, they need to get an HR director past the age of 12.

“Then, the town hall happened. My editor asked me that evening to write on the Violence Against Women Act the next day. I had to tell her I couldn’t.” Nor should she. She is simply too close to the story to be objective about it. Her words above conclusively prove that.