Charlie Rose: 27 More Women Report Harassment

[Content Note: Sexual harassment and assault.]

In November of last year, eight women came forward with allegations that newsman Charlie Rose had sexually harassed and/or assaulted them.

After the story broke, I noted that an allegation against Rose was first made in 2007:

It was fully 10 years in between a single victim coming forward and multiple victims. Something to consider for the "I'll only believe it when there are multiple victims" brigade. Ten years is a lot of time to hurt a lot of women. pic.twitter.com/oRqJL4HJFK

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 20, 2017

As I have previously written, one of the costs of disbelieving survivors is that their abuser will be left free to create more victims.

The Charlie Rose story, it turns out, is a perfect, terrible example of that very dynamic.

Amy Brittain and Irin Carmon at the Washington Post report:

Incidents of sexual misconduct by Charlie Rose were far more numerous than previously known, according to a new investigation by The Washington Post, which also found three occasions over a period of 30 years in which CBS managers were warned of his conduct toward women at the network.

An additional 27 women — 14 CBS News employees and 13 who worked with him elsewhere — said Rose sexually harassed them. Concerns about Rose's behavior were flagged to managers at the network as early as 1986 and as recently as April 2017, when Rose was co-anchor of "CBS This Morning," according to multiple people with firsthand knowledge of the conversations.

...The first instance identified by The Post in which a CBS News employee said a manager was told of Rose's conduct was in 1986, when he was filling in as an anchor on "CBS Morning News."

There, Annmarie Parr, a 22-year-old news clerk, delivered a script to Rose. He had made "lewd, little comments" about her appearance before, Parr said, but that day Rose took it further. "Annmarie, do you like sex?" she said he asked her. "Do you enjoy it? How often do you like to have sex?" She said she laughed nervously and left.

Parr said she reported Rose's comments to her boss — a senior producer whom she declined to name — and said she didn't want to be alone with Rose. The producer laughed, Parr said, and told her, "Fine, you don't have to be alone with him anymore."

Although 1986 was the earliest year Brittain and Carmon could identify that an official report was made to a manager about Rose's behavior, they found that his harassment and assault dated back at least a decade earlier: "The new allegations against Rose date to 1976, when, according to a former research assistant, he exposed his penis and touched her breasts in the NBC News Washington bureau where they worked."

Rose was allowed to harass and assault female colleagues with impunity for 42 years.

I am 43 years old. This man has been abusing women with whom he works for nearly the entire time I've been alive, and yet every single executive at CBS incredibly claims they had no idea.

Rose, meanwhile, responded to the new allegations via email with a single sentence: "Your story is unfair and inaccurate."

The story is not unfair. Its subject matter, however, is breathtakingly so.

I take up space in solidarity with Charlie Rose's victims.