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Olivia Ruth Messer 🗞️ Profile picture
Olivia Ruth Messer 🗞️
@OliviaMesser
Editor in Chief, The Barbed Wire. Tina Brown once called me “meticulous.” Words in @rollingstone @slate @thedailybeast etc olivia@thebarbedwire.com
May 19, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
I’m just going to lay this out there for #txlege folks, especially the younger ones: We’re a few months away from the 10th anniversary of this story, and I’m digging back into some of the half-reported leads I didn’t get to finish. 🧵 texasobserver.org/the-texas-legi… In case you haven’t been following along, 2017 was marked by a tide-turning sense of hope for accountability. A ton of women reached out to me about a whisper network in the Capitol that had developed. thedailybeast.com/women-in-texas…
May 9, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
It’s a political act and a personal sacrifice of incredible proportions to invite public discourse into your trauma. There’s no amount of money that would make it worth it. The personal is political; a sacrifice like this has implications for the country, other women, the world. Reminder to #txlege ladies that it would be a great time to trust me with your stories. Accountability is possible. You’ve got my email.
May 7, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The complete lack of understanding of how trauma impacts journalists is the same EXACT reason it will hit readers. When we fail to understand our own industry’s response to repeated exposure to violent images, we fail to protect our readers too. journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.117… The best way to serve our trauma-impacted communities, our reporters, and our readers is also the key to a sustainable and healthy industry with less burnout and better work product. It’s all the same. Trauma training for journalists of all levels isn’t a luxury. It’s necessity.
Sep 1, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
It would be a great time to donate to an org that works hard to curb incidents of suicide and self-harm in LGBTQ+ youth. How could anyone be so hateful? Literal children could die from this. The folks who work these cases already knowingly take on trauma in order to help others. To aim political weaponry at an already vulnerable population of actual children, to gamble with their lives, is so awful. I can’t even imagine how someone came up with it. I have seen a lot, but it makes me emotional to even know that anyone on this planet is this hateful.
Jan 9, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
So it looks like I got roofied last night, the first night I’ve ever gone out in Sarasota, but jokes on them because the bar was across the street from my parents’ house and all these nice people helped me using the wheelchair available for elderly residents Look, there’s a reason I compliment other women as soon as I see a reason to—it’s because sometimes they’re a nurse who can spot that you’ve been drugged and help your friend get you out of there
Sep 2, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
i have once again engaged in good faith online with a man asking probably a sarcastic question in the mentions of a tweet from a major publication; one day somebody must pls stop me from doing this he was talking smack about monica lewinsky what was i supposed to do????
Sep 1, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
just deeply sad about Texas and about how many people have done the work year after year, letter after letter, protest after protest, donation after donation, showing up to filibuster after filibuster, to prevent this exact thing from happening I just can't stop thinking of the night I reported from the floor of the Texas Senate during @wendydavis's filibuster, when @leticiavdp—who was hoarse because she returned early from a family funeral—fought to be heard. How exhausted they both were that night.
Aug 20, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is shameful @nytimes — those podcast quotes didn’t “resurface,” reporter @clairemcnear did diligent and thorough and tedious work to uncover them. Give her credit for her work and link to it. Attribution is a basic journalistic concept. Quit doing this. I know the @nytimes is setting a bad example, but everyone else has a chance to do it right. I hope @grynbaum fixes this.

May 6, 2021 • 21 tweets • 4 min read
NEW: Despite a mountain of headline-worthy media departures, I believe our industry has failed to properly examine the ways reporters covering the pandemic are struggling—and what can be done about it. This is my attempt to correct that.

studyhall.xyz/the-reporters-… Here’s what I found: My drowning while COVID reporting wasn’t unique. A dozen reporters and editors told me they don’t feel supported by their newsroom leaders, don’t have the tools they need to handle trauma they’re absorbing, and don’t think their bosses even really care.
Apr 26, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
And while we're talking about trauma and burnout, let's have a Texas state capitol where women reporters and lobbyists and staffers don't have to go to work every day knowing they may be sexually assaulted by a colleague without anything even closely resembling accountability I was angry and exhausted by what I found when I reported on #txlege sexism in 2013. In 2017, I was in despair that there were so many untold stories. I worked hard to name the men and follow-up on those stories but, many are still working the same jobs today.
Apr 26, 2021 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Chip and Joanna Gaines recently bought The Waco Tribune-Herald building. Here, @JBSmithTrib writes a beautiful history of the structure, the newspaper, and its legacy.

wacotrib.com/news/local/his… It was the home base for reporters who covered the 1953 Waco tornado; the Branch Davidian disaster; the explosion in West, Texas; and for me, the Twin Peaks biker shooting. Only eight reporters where there once were 20. The empty newsroom is haunting.

wacotrib.com/news/local/his…
Apr 26, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I’m so glad My Octopus Teacher won because it finally rationalizes all the time I spent articulating to my friends a combination of confusion and delight and skepticism and dismay and awe about a movie nobody else I know even saw The predominant takeaways were “wow it must have been tough to be friends with this guy during this year” and “wait is the octopus why his son isn’t living with him” and then “hold up, is he....... going to....no, right?...no no definitely not, ok good”