A BTSW Tactic In Action: Going Public About A Pay Gap

Battle Tactics for Your Sexist Workplace

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"BREAKING: Schwing quits the Northwest News Network. The reason? My male colleagues make tens of thousands of dollars more for the same work. And TBH, making this public scares the S-H-star-T out of me. "

That was a tweet reporter Emily Schwing sent in March 2019, after quitting her job with something called the Northwest News Network. That’s a collection of public radio stations in Washington and Idaho that do regional news reporting. (BTSW's old production partner, KUOW, is part of the Northwest News Network.)

We talked with Emily because she DID a tactic we actually talked about on the show - she quit a job because she felt like she was dealing with a gender pay gap. And then - even though she didn’t really want to go public about why she quit- she went public about why she quit.

And then something unexpected happened - her tweet went kinda viral. Local newspapers picked up the story. And suddenly Emily found herself wondering what was going to happen to her job prospects if future employers Googled her and found all this stuff about her complaining about being underpaid at her previous job.

FWIW: Emily has done some amazing work since March 2019 - with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and with the excellent podcasts Reveal and 70 Million.