The Guardian apologizes for its handling of sexual harassment complaints
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Guardian News & Media, publisher of the Guardian and Observer newspapers, has apologized to at least one woman for handling her complaint that one of the newspaper’s top columnists Nick Cohen groped her in the newsroom.
The company also notified employees that it changes the way sexual harassment complaints are investigated. The apology and policy change followed a New York Times investigation last month in which seven women said Mr. Cohen groped them or made other unwanted sexual advances over nearly two decades.
The Guardian’s Editor-in-Chief Catherine Wiener and executive director Anna Bateson wrote one of those women, Lucy Siegel, an email Monday morning.
“We want to apologize for your experience of sexual harassment at the hands of an Observer employee and for the way your complaint was handled,” the email said.
In 2018, Ms. Ziegl complained that Mr. Cohen had grabbed her bottom in a newsroom years ago. She accused the paper of failing to act on her complaint, saying a senior editor instead defended Mr Cohen.
“Everyone should feel safe at work and in the presence of their colleagues, and the incident you describe is completely unacceptable,” Ms Wiener and Ms Bateson wrote.
Going forward, company managers will no longer independently investigate harassment complaints. “All allegations of sexual harassment will be investigated by an independent, external third party, not by senior GNM executives,” the company said in a statement to employees obtained by The Times.
Third parties will also conduct disciplinary hearings related to any gross misconduct identified during these investigations, the company said.
The Guardian has appointed consultancy firm Howlett Brown as an “independent point of contact until the end of September” for anyone wishing to report any current or historical issues or to “raise concerns about GNM’s sexual harassment policy or culture”. . The company said Howlett Brown found last year that its policies were generally strong.
“I feel a huge sense of relief and a little bit of a lift,” Ms. Ziegl said. “It’s just a big weight off my shoulders. I feel like I can move forward, which I haven’t been able to do for a while.”
Mr Cohen spent two decades as a columnist for The Observer before stepping down in January. He did not respond to the specific allegations made against him by The Times. “I wrote about my alcoholism for a long time. I was clean seven years ago, in 2016,” he said last month. “I look back on my life of addiction with deep shame.”