'Believer' Staffers Claim University Used Public Records Law To Access Their Personal Texts After Zoom Exposure Incident
Work
Staffers at Believer magazine—the prestigious literary magazine that has been in the news over the past month or two after their former editor-in-chief Joshua Wolf Shenk resigned after exposing his genitals during a work call—are claiming that a public record request put in by Motherboard was used to intimidate them and gain access to their personal correspondence.
A Los Angeles Times piece in late April broke the news of the incident that led to Shenk’s resignation both as editor-in-chief of Believer magazine and artistic and executive director of the Black Mountain Institute (both of which are organizations affiliated with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas), framing it as a one-off weird incident not reflective of Shenk’s general conduct in the workplace. However, an open letter published on Medium by anonymous former and current employees at the Believer soon after Shenk’s resignation revealed that this type of behavior was far from out of character. Not only was Shenk reportedly an absent boss “who created a fractured workplace rife with pay and labor inequalities,” but he also had a history of making female Believer staffers feel uncomfortable with his lack of awareness of his own body.