Katie Hill was a Democratic Congresswoman from California who resigned in October 2019 after she admitted to a sexual relationship with a staffer. Her resignation also followed a series of leaked nude photos of Hill.
During an interview with Alayna Treene aired on Sunday’s “Axios on HBO,” Hill said she thinks she could have survived the scandal without resigning, and that she would consider another run from Congress.
Hill pointed out others who have, so far, continued to serve despite sexual misconduct allegations — such as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz. Hill said, “You really wonder how much of it was the pressure I put on myself because I was a woman, and because I’d been an advocate for the #MeToo movement, and how much of it was sexism and ... the public shaming aspect of it, the revenge-porn aspect of it.”
Hill admits it would “take a lot” for her to run again, and that she is happier now not being in Congress. She also took responsibility for having a sexual relationship with a staffer, saying, “Would I ever do it again? No, absolutely not. I let those boundaries blur, and that shouldn't have happened. Was it the right thing to do? No.”
Important essay of the day
Kat O’Brien, a former baseball writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and New York’s Newsday, has a powerful essay in The New York Times: “I Am Breaking My Silence About the Baseball Player Who Raped Me.”
O’Brien writes, “I choose not to name him because it would only open me up to the possibility of having dirt thrown on my reputation; even all these years later and in the wake of the #MeToo movement, a former professional athlete wields considerable power. I hope I can help bring about systemic change rather than seek unlikely-to-come justice for one horrible act.”
O’Brien details the horrific events of what happened when she was 22 and how they impacted her life after that, including to this day.
It’s a must-read.
A legend retires
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune has written her farewell column: “Not so long ago — 29 years — I started writing a column. This will be the last. Thank you.”
As Chicago media writer Robert Feder noted, Schmich is just the latest columnist to leave the Tribune in recent days, a list that includes John Kass, Eric Zorn, Heidi Stevens and Steve Chapman.
Schmich won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for commentary and helped write the Brenda Starr comic strip from 1985 to 2010.
In her farewell column, Schmich wrote, “I’ve never written a column that I didn’t wish was better, including this one. But I’ve done it as well as I knew how, never forgetting, even when I cursed the constant deadlines or felt bad that I couldn’t answer all the emails, that there was nothing better than being granted this education and this connection with the world, with all of you.”
A Philly special
Maybe the best thing about being a sportswriter for more than 30 years was getting to meet many of my colleagues while covering events over the years. That’s my way of saying sportswriters are good people. Among those at the top of that list is The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Les Bowen. In a column for the Inquirer, Bowen announced he accepted a buyout and is retiring.
Bowen arrived in Philadelphia 38 years ago after working at The Charlotte Observer. I met him on the hockey beat when he was covering the Philadelphia Flyers, but he then went on to cover the Philadelphia Eagles for two decades. He started off at The Daily News and then wrote for the Inquirer after the papers merged.
It was a pleasure getting to know Bowen — a classy and professional journalist and a heck of a nice guy.
In his column — which you should read because it is way more than a farewell column — Bowen writes, “For me, sportswriting has always been as much about the writing as about the sports. That perspective is becoming rare in the biz. So much of what seems to be in vogue today is foreign terrain to me, and I don’t like that feeling, because I never wanted to write like ‘an old guy.’ Way back when I started out, sports was attractive because it encouraged a certain writerly style, more so than news reporting. You were granted freedom to have a voice, to be whimsical, or sarcastic. I might have tested the limits of that freedom a time or two. Thanks for indulging me.”
Policing in America
