Writer IDs herself as creator of list of media men accused of sexual misconduct

The author of a list of men in the media accused of sexual misconduct revealed her identity Wednesday, as reports surfaced that a popular magazine planned to name the woman, according to The New York Times.

Moira Donegan revealed her identity as Harper’s Magazine prepared to run a piece on the list in its March edition, the Times said. The list identifies 70 men in the media industry for predatory behavior that allegedly ranged from harassment to rape.

The author of the Harper’s story denied that the piece named the woman.

Numerous writers and editors posted tweets this week warning that the Harper’s article would identify the author of the list, despite efforts to protect her identity.

Some began a campaign to have writers pull their work from Harper’s, as a way to pressure the magazine to halt the publishing of the author’s name.

By Wednesday morning, five writers were said to have pulled their stories from publication in future issues of Harper’s, the Times said.

The author of the Harper’s piece, essayist Katie Roiphe, told the Times in an email that her piece did not name the woman.

“I am not ‘outing’ anyone,’ Roiphe wrote. “I have to say it’s a little disturbing that anyone besides Trump views Twitter as a reliable news source.”

Roiphe said she “would never put in the creator of the list if they didn’t want to be named.”

The controversy over whether Donegan would be named gained so much steam that Nicole Cliffe, founding co-editor of the defunct feminist blog The Toast, said she would pay writers who pull their work the amount they were due by the magazine, the Times said.

Wednesday evening, Donegan revealed her identity in a first-person piece on New York magazine’s web vertical The Cut.

The list first was circulated in October, and it has grown as more and more women added names and descriptions of inappropriate behavior.

The list has garnered widespread attention; a version was posted on Reddit and mentioned in an article on BuzzFeed.

The list is accompanied by a statement acknowledging that it includes some information based on “rumors” Some men have been fired from media jobs since the list was first shared.

Donegan, for her part, said she never expected the list to gain such notoriety, the Times said.

“I had imagined a document that would assemble the collective, unspoken knowledge of sexual misconduct that was shared by the women in my circles,” she wrote. “What I got instead was a much broader reckoning with the abuses of power that spanned an industry.”