In mid-97 I gave notice as Craccum News Editor without even making a harassment complaint. I was 19. Martyn, my boss, locked me out of my computer & went through my emails to find embarrassing personal details with which to victimize & bully me because I asked for my holiday pay. https://twitter.com/postingdad/status/1381363588107968513

The AUSA Media committee was chaired by his mate, Chris Pratt, and never did anything about it. ASPA president @toby_etc never even emailed me back at the time. Unlike various other of his victims, I got off pretty lightly so never had to get gagged by a court order.

Sometimes people ask me why I never went into journalism for real. And I laugh. Ha. Ha. Ha. Years later when I started getting a bit of a name for myself on @publicaddress Martyn approached me at a party and shook my hand, and I’m like - the fuck does he think that means.

Like, oh, you have social media power now, we’d better call a truce, please don’t talk shit about me? Fuck that guy.

Worse than the toxic, misogynist, racist work environment and bullying that led to me quitting, was the completely out-there victimisation and lack of institutional support for me afterwards. It still triggers me some now, all these years later.

my life is so weird, i got birthered before birthering was a thing, and also HER EEEEEMAAAILS

omg “Chris Pratt”? Chris Patch, AUSA Media Officer, 1997.

And @toby_etc has messaged me to apologise for never replying to my ASPA complaint at the time, which was sent to all the editors (he was Salient), to v. little response, and no action by ASPA. It’s possible he wasn’t the president? A long time & many traumatised braincells ago.

I remember talking to Toby about this incident about five years ago and although he found it disgraceful, he had no memory of it. That really hit home to me how little impact my efforts to seek support had made at the time, which was just a bit devastating tbh.

Thanks to all the folks checking in on me, including @Tim_Watkin, my Craccum news editor grandfather, who oversaw a much more wholesome era. The replies to this thread give you an idea of the stuff I was lucky enough to *not* be personally subjected to by Martyn.

I realised today that there was nothing stopping me from tweeting about my experiences, given that what he did with my emails was literally defended by the AUSA media committee because I had quit & therefore Craccum owned my emails.

What kind of 1990s infosec nightmare of privacy policy were we living in idk. I bet the embarrassing poems he found me writing in my emails to crushes were still better than his shit poetry.