health

White House Erased Women's Health Info, TheSkimm Hit Undo

With a new administration moving into the White House, media-savvy organizations knew that large chunks of online information might suddenly disappear. So while Margaret Wheeler, executive editor at theSkimm, wasn’t exactly surprised that ReproducitveRights.gov -- a site packed with well-sourced details about birth control, abortion, and women’s health -- vanished, it did shock her into action.

“We certainly didn't have a heads up that this particular site was going to disappear,” she says. “I don't think anyone had.”

TheSkimm team moved fast, first ascertaining that all the information from the site had been preserved by the Internet Archive and recently updated. “We thought, 'We have a website. What if we just copied all of this and posted it here?’”

A quick check-in with lawyers got a thumbs-up on Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, it had a domain: reproductiverightsdotgov.com. The new site restored public resources, reproducing the same essential facts and know-your-rights materials lost when the site went offline.

advertisement

advertisement

TheSkimm’s two founders recorded a video to explain the move, pushing it out on their social channels.

Response to the “new” site has been overwhelming, Wheeler tells Marketing Daily.

“We know how important women's health is to our audience. We talk to them about it all the time. But the outpouring about this has been amazing across all platforms, from Instagram to individual LinkedIn posts,” she said. “It's hit a nerve.”

TheSkimm has always defined itself as a nonpartisan news outlet, and Wheeler says the decision to rescue the reproductive rights site doesn’t change that.

“Our position is that we always want to give women information about their health, and they can then make the right decisions for them. We are just doing what we’ve always tried to do: present information in a non-biased, fact-checked, science-based way, regardless of the politics surrounding it.”

And just because reproductive rights have been politicized, “women’s health is not about politics.”

But these are murky times for media brands. Depending on their political orientation, many consumers believe most media sources are either too left-leaning or too right-leaning. And many large outlets, including the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, have been scrambling to appear less biased.

Wheeler is not worried that the decision might somehow cast theSkimm as a “resistance” brand, potentially turning off some readers of the platform's audience of 16 million.

“We’re just going to keep doing what we’ve always done, which is tell people what is true by sticking to the science, what the laws are and how they are changing. Fact-checking is more important than ever, given what various platforms are choosing to do right now,” she said.

“That’s never failed us here. And that’s what we’ll keep doing.”

Next story loading loading..