Frank Parlato
One week has passed since I requested from Ellen Huet answers to 13 questions about her initial report about OneTaste that had such a significant impact on her life and the lives of many others. While Huet may be taking her time to carefully consider the answers to the questions, readers have expressed a deep interest in the story, and look forward to the ongoing series. Therefore, while I await Huet’s answers, I will provide a little more background about this significant and impactful Bloomberg story.
Bloomberg Businessweek’s story, The Dark Side of Orgasmic Meditation, by Ellen Huet, published on June 18, 2018, starts dramatically with Michal Neria – though only her first name is mentioned in the article.
Huet reports that Neria, in a “daze,” “felt compelled” to marry a man she met recently at OneTaste.
The sensational story, in which Neria claims OneTaste “deserves” the “full weight” of the term “cult,” prompted an FBI investigation, which led to the indictment of two individuals named in the story, both executives of the story’s target: OneTaste.
The story begins:
“When Michal got married in August 2015, her family and longtime friends didn’t attend. The woman who walked her down the aisle, the dozens of beaming onlookers, her soon-to-be husband—all were people she’d met in the preceding 10 months. Wearing a loose, casual dress borrowed from one of her new friends, Michal spent the ceremony in a daze.
“She knew she didn’t want to get married like this, in the living room of a rented San Francisco house without her family’s support, yet she felt compelled to do it…”
Huet explains in her Bloomberg story that she interviewed “16 former OneTaste staffers and community members… Most spoke anonymously because they signed nondisclosure agreements or fear retribution. Some, including Michal, asked to withhold their last names because they don’t want to be publicly associated with the company.”
The Bloomberg Way, the company’s guide for publishers and editors, says:
“When using anonymous sourcing, we strive for at least two people with direct knowledge of the matter telling us the same set of facts.”
And: “Look for sources with direct knowledge of what’s going on, not those who heard information secondhand.”
Husband Unnamed
The man Michal Neria “felt compelled” to marry is not named in the story or quoted. Huet refers to the husband as “a man who worked in tech and had paid part of her Magic School tuition.”
And: “a fellow member—the one who’d been helping pay for her classes.”
Did the husband have anything to say about his wife feeling compelled to marry him? After all, it is rather insulting to find out that your spouse felt compelled to marry you because of outside pressure, not because she wanted to marry you.
Did Ellen Huet know the husband?
Did she “strive for at least two people with direct knowledge of the matter telling…the same set of facts”?
According to an email exchange, the husband suggested Neria as a source for Huet.
Naming the Husband
Let’s name him.
He is Mike (Misha) Safyan, VP of Launch & Strategic Initiatives for Planet Labs, a provider of global daily satellite imagery.
He worked at Planet before he married Neria. He lives in San Francisco.
Seven months before Huet published the story, Safyan emailed her with a list of possible sources for her story.
He included his ex-wife. (The couple later divorced.)
Huet wanted to help Safyan keep his relationship with her secret, at least from the sources.
Huet emailed Safyan:
“Also, if you prefer for me not to tell these people you suggested them, let me know if you also want me to unfriend you temporarily on FB! I realize it doesn’t have to go that far but want to be accommodating of what you might prefer.”
Editors Wanted a Dark Slant?
After the story was published, Huet explained to OneTaste’s CEO, Anjuli Ayer, that her editors did not want to include positive statements or any statements which may contradict the “dark side” narrative, which they chose to publish. Feeling compelled to marry, as opposed to eagerly choosing to marry, is the opening cornerstone for the cult-like status Bloomberg apparently wished to bestow on OneTaste. Without Neria’s feeling “compelled,” she did what a lot of other people who are not in a cult have done: married in haste and divorced in regret.
Huet wrote:
“The stories focused heavily on the negative side of the company and on members’ bad experiences…. you both had sat in interviews with me and provided me with many other resources who could speak more positively about the company, and that side of OneTaste wasn’t very prominent in the story. That’s partly because of the magazine publishing format: we had a hard cap at a certain number of words and a mandate to focus on news. The editors believed lots had been written already about the benefits of OneTaste’s teachings, and wanted to focus on what hadn’t been reported before.”
Hubbie Has Different Story
About a month before the Bloomberg story was published, Safyan told a different story to the Trove Podcast.
He appeared under the pseudonym “Daniel” and called Michal, “Michelle.” He said he was on “cloud nine” because of their marriage.
Misha (as Daniel) said of Michal (Michelle):
“… I remember seeing Michelle (for the first time)…. I remember, like immediately being so so interested and attracted…
So, the first kind of like handful of months, were me attempting to court her, and her resisting and just wanting to be free and independent. But there was a point where things kind of changed. And then we just both admitted that we liked each other. And at that point, we were kind of like inseparable….
“We really wanted to like build a life together. … She was the first person when I like looked into the future, like I didn’t see any barriers to us being together, you know, for a long time, or maybe even forever….
“We eventually did get married …. And I was yeah, I was just on cloud nine. I remember that pretty clearly.”
At least we know that Safyan did not claim he felt compelled to marry Neria.
But did Huet know about this?
Huet Asks Safyan to Help Postpone the Podcast
A month before the podcast was published, and two months before Bloomberg published the “Dark Side” story, Huet asked Safyan to try to postpone the podcast.
On Apr 29, 2018, Safyan wrote Zeneva A. Schindler of The Trove podcast.
Hey Zeneva!
Hope things are going well with the episode. I actually have a small favor to ask: a friend of mine that works for a big news outlet (she preferred I not disclose which one just yet) is working on a wider-researched article about OneTaste that is also scheduled to come out in the mid-May timeframe. My personal story isn’t a central part of it, although I did help advise her on background and pointed her to several other ex-OneTaste people to talk to.
Anyway, her request is that you consider publishing your podcast in June so that her story doesn’t get scooped. It would mean a lot to me that this bigger piece doesn’t get disrupted because I think it’s a really important step in exposing the full story around OneTaste.
Let me know what you think about all that, happy to chat more in person or on the phone if you have questions.
Schindler wrote back on Apr 29, 2018
Hi Misha,
Good to hear from you! As far as release the podcast goes, at this point it is a bit tricky for me to delay. I am on vacation in Europe and don’t have another episode that will be publishing-ready in May and the show is published on a monthly basis. I’ve already let listeners know that I will be releasing an episode mid-May and it is important to maintain consistency with episode releases.
That being said, honestly I don’t think your friend has anything to worry about in terms of being scooped on this story. I have a super super tiny listenership and the podcast is very new.
I am really sorry for not being more flexible. The timing is a bit tough in terms of my being away etc. Also, truthfully I just think there won’t be any issue at all with disrupting the larger story. The podcast really has very few listeners and the nature of the piece is very different than an investigative story.
The same day, Safyan forwarded Schindler’s response to Huet and wrote:
“I tried :/”
Huet wrote back an hour later:
No worries. She’s probably right — and I figured she might be depending on publishing your episode to keep to her monthly schedule. I really appreciate you asking!
Thanks. Send me a link when it’s out! And def tell me if you hear of any similar stories being worked on.
No Corroboration
Huet begins her “Dark Side” story by describing Neria’s feeling compelled to marry Safyan because of OneTaste.
Her husband said he did not feel compelled to marry her and described Neria as not feeling compelled either. Huet chose not to include Safyan’s views or the fact that she knew him.
The Bloomberg Way says,
“When we decide to use anonymous sourcing, there needs to be a discussion: What did the reporter ask? How was it asked? What was the response? Do all the anonymous sources agree? Why should we trust these people? How do they know what they know? What’s their motive? Why don’t they want their names used? What are we missing? What we don’t know will hurt us.”
The last sentence may be true, but in this “Dark Side” of the story, it is what the readers did not know that may be more important.
Starting with a woman feeling compelled to marry sets the tone of Bloomberg’s story of OneTaste.
The Bloomberg Way
Does Neria’s deliberately uncorroborated story meet the editorial standards of The Bloomberg Way or any other way?
The Bloomberg Way states, “never delay or hide a correction. The longer a mistake remains uncorrected, the more people are likely to come across the error and to question other facts.”
Those “other “facts” may include the relationship between the reporter, Huet, and Safyan.
Relationship With Source
The Bloomberg Way states: “Journalists who develop a romantic or close relationship with a newsmaker, potential newsmaker or source should inform their team leaders and expect to be reassigned.”
Huet knew Safyan on a personal level. In fact, she appears with him on a YouTube video published four months before Bloomberg published her story. The video is about Monday night dinners at RGB House, a community house in San Francisco. Both Huet and Safyan appear as apparent attendees of the dinners, and as possible co-residents of the same community house.
Ellen Huet appears in a video with Misha ‘Mike’ Safyan in early 2018.
To be continued…
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
Bless. Your. Hearts.
😘
I am skeptical about Bloomberg’s motives.
If Huet really had a personal connection to one of the sources, that’s a serious breach of journalistic ethics. I know journalistic ethics is an oxymoron.
If Huet killed someone without justification, that’s a serious breach of the law.
The key word is “if”.
People stupid enough to spend lots of money on the stroking cult are stupid enough to overlook that critical point.
Never underestimate the power of the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
It sounds like there was a rush to publish without fully vetting the story. This is what happens when media outlets prioritize speed ansd clicks over accuracy. I blame the editors. They approved the story ands according to Ellen Huet controlled the slant.
Huet is cornered. There is no case against these women. This case will fold before it ever gets to trial.
you think that matters? must be new here
This how Jewish fake news works. Reporter sleeps with source to the get the info her bosses tell her to get. Just like Gamergate.
Maybe I should go through all these articles of FR and find all the errors, mistakes, etc and see if he’s corrected them.
Is Frank Report expected to maintain the same standards and unbiased perspective that major media outlets should be adhering to?
Please do. Make a list with evidence to support every error you find.
No way this is Ellen Huet’s fault. Her editors told her to do a slam piece. What else could she do?
It’s the editors not her.
Just following orders. We heard that one before
at One Taste?
The FBI uses the same tricks Bloomberg did.
Bloomberg is a common Jewish surname.
Just saying.
Good story in the series. But where is this going ?
I don’t know but I want more
This is going to the lacrosse field at Duke.
Huet should pick up the phone and call Frank. Fretting over the 13 questions and turtling from Frank, isn’t going to end well.
She better watch out or Frank is going to write mean things about her here and then her career is FUCKED!
Why does the reporter have to tell on herself ?
She doesn’t have to. If she was sleeping with the husband she can’t tell about that. What would happen is the editors would take her off the story and the public would never know about One Taste
No, they would just assign it to another writer, maybe one who wasn’t looking to star in documentaries and get a book deal, one who actually would investigate the facts and present a balanced article. But what would be the fun in that?
under normal circumstances yes.
but for this story sleeping with the sources is part of due diligence.
and even if it wasn’t, how can you say for certain that Ellen wasn’t mind controlled by Mike Safyan?
he is after all one of the known rogue masters of One Taste franciscan juclitsu.
Onetaste: where people learned about stroking the clit before they got married.
Better to learn before rather than later.
I got married before I even knew what a clitoris is and now I feel like I was forced to get married.