A Reporter's Suicide Has Turned The Toronto Star Newsroom's Personal Lives Into A Public Rollercoaster Ride
Reporters’ death prompts investigation and soul-searching at @TorontoStar. R.I.P Raveena. https://t.co/2baEF0J6T1 pic.twitter.com/RPkDBIEySt
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) June 8, 2016
It’s a weekday and I’m on the grind. I put the finishing touches on a quick blog and hop right back on the train to find more #content #content #content. I click a Twitter link about a reporter suicide, expecting a quick blurb about sadness and tragedy; instead, I go on a fucking rollercoaster ride about the Toronto Star newsroom. Office relationships, betrayal, firings, independent investigations, suicide notes, private emails and all sorts of other twists, turns and loops deriving from a reporter taking her own life.
Raveena Aulakh was an award-winning reporter for the Toronto Star. She committed suicide on May 28th. The Star did not write an obituary or disclose really any details about her death. Then rumors began to swirl, other Toronto journalists began to buzz towers, and things got reaaaal interesting.
Aulakh sent several emails before her death, detailing that she had been in a relationship with a senior manager, Jon Filson.
According to those emails, Aulakh was rattled because Filson, who is married, was also engaged in an “inappropriate relationship” with his boss, managing editor Jane Davenport.
In a suicide note, she apparently asked not to have an obituary written about her (allegedly asked not to have anything written about her). But other’s in media have disagreed; The Toronto Sun, the Star’s main competitor, threatened to write an obituary if The Star does not.
It’s gotten so out of control, many are calling for The Star to publish the suicide note.
At @walrusmagazine, I make the case for @TorontoStar releasing Raveena Aulakh’s suicide note—despite her wisheshttps://t.co/9w2AIRKiNp
— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) June 8, 2016
(I know it’s complicated. We’ve got Stars. We’ve got Suns. We’ve got reporters, editors, managers all tangled in the sheets and someone somewhere is married. It’s like Star Wars meets The Bachelor meets The Newsroom up there.)
Meanwhile, Joe Warmington, a Toronto Sun columnist, has been AGGRESSIVELY ruffling all sorts of feathers:
The Star claims to have conducted its own investigation. Filson, the married dude who was relationshipping everybody, was fired. Davenport, Filson’s boss whom he was fooling around with, was transferred from the newsroom but is still with the company.
The union representing The Star has called for an independent investigation. The Star doesn’t seem to be too happy about that, but considering their entire newsroom was messing around and they either didn’t know it or didn’t address it, and it resulted in an award-winning reporter committing suicide, I think they need some assistance. Some serious assistance. And some reflection.
The whole thing is wild. WILD. I feel like I have to apply for a job in the Toronto Star newsroom right? Place sounds electric. Might get laid. Might get killed. Everyday is like a box of chocolates. If the New York office is anything like this I’m uncontrollably excited for September. A full bar. Cameras everywhere. Nate suspended from the ceiling. Toss in a couple coed NYU interns and what could go wrong?
PS – The Star’s public editor, Kathy English, pinned this note about the whole thing. It’s what I first read that put me on this rollercoaster ride.