I was heartened to read in several places recently that the nacre oysters produce in coating grains of sediment in the transformation process is “strong, resilient, and iridescent.”

Although I never intended to produce a series of essays all related to such a narrow grouping of topics, especially as it at least felt over the past several years that my ideas were unheard, each time another lesson or perspective born during the process of considering my experience working for a decades-old talk show management team has seemed relevant to problems in the world, it has felt as though this foreign body needed another coating of redemption.

Beginning early on, I have explained that, particularly when working to heal from my experience with Larry King Live management, every time I heard it was advisable to simply let old problems go, I felt like I had reached out to a poison control operator and was being given the best news imaginable. This was what I wanted and what I was trying to do. But, eventually, I realized that, perhaps because it at least felt like what I’d witnessed and experienced related to the safety of so many other women who could be protected from something similar, and perhaps because the violation involved was so serious, it simply didn’t seem possible. I didn’t feel I could silently digest what occurred. I felt I needed to report, although even acknowledging to myself, much less openly talking about what happened, was about the last thing in the world I wanted to do.

When many other women also spoke about their experiences, it was very healing, and I felt my contributions would be helpful too. For this reason, I would have preferred to have been heard right away and move on. (It would be one thing if it felt like dealing with this issue was my principle purpose in life or the reason I was born. But I do not believe this at all. I recall the moment I agreed, under pressure, to subordinate my career to my boyfriend’s and give up a job for which I had worked so very hard. Just before this, when I had learned my request to transfer to New York had been approved, I had been about the most joyful I had ever been and leapt into his arms practically in tears I was so thrilled. Agreeing to rescind my acceptance of that opportunity and, perhaps much more importantly, leave my career in progress altogether in order to work for the Larry King Live team instead, was one of the most terrible-feeling moments of my life. While I reasoned that it was sacrificial of me, and the kind of thing I should be willing to do in preparation for marriage, I believe the still small voice in my heart was telling me no.)

The particular talk show world and culture about which I learned was simply not indigenous to me, and like an oyster, I have felt the need to coat every last contour of the remnant of its influence on my life in the strongest, most protective, and most artful materials I have until it can be removed forever (and, hopefully, transformed into something beautiful in the process).

The Larry King Live team (certainly not its host, who I only met briefly) seemed to take pride in being called “the locker room,” and, although I did not take part in using this reference, I believe it was appropriate. Still, a locker room implies closedness and insulation, while this team’s culture, which at least seemed to me ruthless, celebrity-soaked, and dangerous, impacted the world. The team’s executive producer had one of the Beatles play personally at her birthday party, and it seemed no matter how severe wrongdoing became on the talk show team, there appeared to be no one willing to confront them for this reason. It was an environment primed for abuse.

I believe that, if a man has graduated from high school whose young men engage in serious degradation against women in what seems to serve as little more than sport or entertainment, this should be addressed. (I felt that the man in my case had arrived at CNN in a state of almost-psychosis after attending one particular southern private school, not just wishing, but evidently believing with conviction that all women were his personal property in a way. I had begun to stand up to him about this firmly and often and even requested and accepted a transfer to a new city in order to maintain my independence, but I felt terribly hamstrung after making the awful-feeling decision to agree to work for his team, Larry King Live. It felt as if this man, who I cared about, had made a deal with our company that, should he be allowed to badly harm one girl, he would be willing to go on to behave as an upstanding citizen and moneymaker thereafter, and, without my consent, they agreed.) Similarly, if a man is reassigned due to complaints, while a second chance may well be warranted and a desirable expression of a progressive and merciful work culture, this should arguably be considered should there be a recurrence. I feel CNN could easily have gotten ahead of many senseless dangers built in to my hire by the Larry King team, but I felt left to deal with them alone.

While I am sure my former boyfriend gained confidence from having a girl held down for him to do practically whatever he wanted to her, I feel the world generally loses in these kinds of scenarios when a woman’s skills and talents go untapped during a long recovery process. My former boyfriend could have built confidence instead by being encouraged to learn a skill or develop a talent of some kind in an environment where human rights were recognized and while I developed and expressed my own contributions in safety.

The more I felt unheard about this even as other women also spoke up about their own experiences, the more important it felt to talk about what happened, because there is a big difference between not being heard due to one’s own silence and feeling unheard.

I believe continuing to impersonalize my experience and focusing more on the systems than the individuals involved will be healing. But being pressured to ignore or try to pretend away what happened, especially because it related directly to my gender, feels not like being asked to turn my – but rather like being asked to turn womankind’s – cheek. The burden of such a decision a heavy weight.

While everyone is certainly responsible for her or his own decisions, and I have probably too frequently pondered my own and others’ errors in navigating this particular unaddressed experience of abuse so long ago, it still seems important to articulate that I observed a stark contrast in employee safety based on gender. After agreeing to work for the talk show team, I felt like I’d experienced one set of relationships – these being my relationships to all of my colleagues – under the jurisdiction of, literally, two countries. And there was an immense difference.

One of the reasons I feel it is important to talk about safety and equality within news organizations in particular is that, being such unique, important, and large outfits, the ripple effects of their inner workings are incredibly far-reaching. While there are times when walking away seems the only answer to injustices, as the contexts within which harms take place become larger, more damaging to world affairs, and more systematized, there are also arguably times to talk about them.

It seems to me that, due partly to our, largely advertiser-funded and publicly-traded, news infrastructure we are currently in danger of devolving from what could easily be a very united representative democracy to more of a divisive oligarchy dominated by journalists and celebrities. This is as, by voting for these types of proxies with clicks and ratings, it is arguable news consumers are generally not indicating what they like and do not like, but, rather, what they do and do not have strong feelings about. I have proposed solutions, including funding news organizations more like public utilities than big tobacco given that news of national import is a public good – arguably requiring creative means for active engagement, certainly, but in no need of being laced with addictive and harmful additives – like outrage and sensationalism – to encourage more passive consumption. Given how large media conglomerates have become, and how sizeable their influence, it may also be worth considering seriously the impact of their issuance of speculative currency, not unlike many countries’.

I still believe that, together, by supporting civil rights in news organizations we can greatly reduce, if not eliminate, coverage that can seem more about garnering ratings than about problem-solving, helping pave the way for a more fulfilling, productive, and even beautiful, experience for both content producers and consumers. I have frequently observed a direct and proportional correlation between producer safety and broadcast quality. My hope, should my website be read moving forward, is that it supports the idea that the life of one person is worth more than luxuries for popular program producers.

Like an individual pearl, every one person’s perspective reflects light from and into her surroundings in a unique and meaningful way. Claims that basic human rights protections for individuals within media organizations are impractical are impositions to be identified, handled, and transformed.