America Was Once a Place For Brighter Futures
Billie Jean Sweeney’s grandmother left Ireland in search of a better life. Now Sweeney’s pinning her hopes for safety on a reverse trip.
by Billie Jean Sweeney
About the time the American president was railing at the United Nations about an escalator ride interrupted by his own staffer, my wife and I were boarding an airliner at John F. Kennedy International Airport for a flight to Ireland: Two women with two cats and two one-way tickets to Dublin, our new home.
We arrived safely and, despite the many hurdles that await, we’ve come to believe that a brighter future for us is here, in the land of my grandmother, Annie O’Neill. It was a decision born of relative privilege. We had a choice because, along with our US citizenship, I have citizenship in Ireland. Most people facing oppression and discrimination don’t have the luxury of options.
I moved with great sadness, having devoted more than four decades of my professional life to journalism and human rights, fields that are both in a precarious and fast-degrading state. Leaders in media and politics, thirsty for power and money, and often working hand in glove, had set off this debasement and have seemed determined to accelerate it.
If speaking out is the only choice for people of conscience, is there a right way to do it? Along with my wife, Ellie, herself a veteran journalist, we decided that regrouping in a friendlier setting was the best means for us. But there is no correct tactic, only an imperative to keep going, to keep raising our voices.
I left my job as an international editor at The New York Times a year ago even though I loved the work, my colleagues and my direct bosses. I resigned because the company’s leaders were determined to pursue a campaign of anti-trans disinformation and discrimination, and were equally intent on silencing internal dissent.
History had long told us, of course, that anti-trans hatred is the tip of the spear for the forces of fascism who have broader, deeply cancerous aims that include the destruction of democracy and the elevation of racism, misogyny, bigotry and homophobia.
But does history matter to today’s titans of media? Or are hatred and lies just a “side” to be conveyed in a press narrative untethered by morality, given less weight than facts and fairness? Personal ambition and the drive for wealth have blinded these leaders and endangered us all, the world over.
A free press, independent of government, is a pillar of international human rights. When the press fails, as its leaders have done these past few years, all of our rights are at risk. I defended reporters, editors, photographers, columnists for nearly a decade at the Committee to Protect Journalists. Their ranks today, as then, are filled with people, from the well-known stars to the unknown fixers, who share an earnest desire to make the world better.
The rot, as history tells us, has always come from the top.
Annie O’Neill, my grandmother, arrived at Ellis Island in 1904 at the age of 17 after an arduous, month-long journey by ship. She and friends from County Mayo had left Ireland in search of a better life. It was a bold step.
My wife, Ellie, has always been the more daring of us, setting out to be a sports writer in the South when few women were given a spot in the press box. She backed my transition without hesitation and has sacrificed mightily in standing by me.
And so I hope to live up to the ideals of both Annie and Ellie and the better angels of my profession. Journalism has an outsized role in the lives of every human being so I try to remind myself each day of my obligation. Keep going.
Now, if only I can figure out how the hob works.
Billie Jean Sweeney is a news editor, press freedom advocate and trans woman.