Before we get to the Washington Post story at the heart of this post, please allow me to share a journalism parable from my years at the Rocky Mountain News (RIP), back in the 1980s.
It was obvious that, sooner or later, Operation Rescue protesters would come to the Boulder Abortion Clinic, which was nationally known for its work in third-trimester abortions and other controversial procedures. I urged my editors to commit time and resources to a pair of profiles of important activists on both sides. One was a former abortionist who had joined the pro-life cause. The other was a liberal Christian who was pouring her life into the defense of abortion rights.
These profiles would be the same length and would run side-by-side, with similar art and headlines. There would be no need to include balance and dissent in each of the profiles since they represented competing voices on both sides of an important debate in public life. In the end, we heard praise and criticism from readers on both sides of this event.
Now, let’s look at the Post story that ran under this double-decker headline:
Activists face an avalanche of anti-transgender bills
‘If this bill don’t pass, it’s coming back next year,’ says an ardent advocate in Alabama
That sub-headline is, for all practical purposes, the only time that “conservative” cultural voices are heard in this long, long feature story. Every single sentence in this story is written using the precise terms, images and themes of the activists opposed to these “anti-transgender” bills in Alabama and across America.
In effect, this story — a totally valid profile of an important activist — is one half of a package covering these debates deep in the Bible Belt.
The problem is that there is no second profile. There is no feature of equal length addressing, let’s say, the views of a Black church leader who works with young people who are making efforts to “detransition” after declaring themselves trans. There was no attempt to produce a second piece by a reporter committed to covering issues of this kind.
There is no sign that Post editors ever considering listening to people — Black and White — on the other side of this issue. This is crucial since, from beginning to end, the feature argues that the trans cause is the latest expression of the Civil Rights Movement. Consider the long, but crucial, overture:
SELMA, Ala. — Quentin Bell had traveled from Selma to Montgomery thousands of times, but still, he loaded the map before he pulled his Dodge pickup onto the dirt road in early March. He glanced at the arcing route, then over to his wife, Jennine, who was riding shotgun.
“54 miles,” he said.
It was 8:59 a.m. Bell had plenty of time to drive what took the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and thousands of voting rights activists five days to walk. The presentation didn’t start until noon, but Bell knew he couldn’t risk being even a minute late. He and a group of other transgender activists had just 30 minutes to talk to the House Democrats, 30 minutes to show they were human, 30 minutes to teach Alabama’s liberal legislators how to fight — for the third year in a row — a series of bills aimed at keeping transgender children out of bathrooms and away from puberty blockers.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment,” Bell said as he drummed his palms against the steering wheel. “I just want to be able to make a connection so we can continue to work with them after this, because if this bill don’t pass, it’s coming back next year.”
Then there is the Big Idea summary of what this story is all about:
Lately, fighting bills had begun to feel like a full-time job for advocates like Bell. His side had prevailed in Alabama two years in a row, but legislators kept reintroducing measures to erode protections for transgender people. This year, Bell thought, the other side seemed to be gaining momentum. South Dakota had barred transgender girls from playing girls sports, and in Idaho, legislators were working to make gender-affirming care punishable by up to life in prison. After Texas failed to pass a similar bill last year, the governor ordered state agencies to investigate parents who allow their children to transition.
Alabama hadn’t gone that far, but Bell feared they had reached a critical turning point in the debate over trans rights. Legislators were closer than they’d ever been to passing two bills Bell hoped to stop. One barred trans kids from using bathrooms that match their identities and the other, which legislators expect to vote on this month, would send doctors to prison if they were to help anyone 19 or younger transition. Policymakers called it the “Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act.” In committee hearings, Republican legislators said they’d introduced the bills to protect children, but Bell and other advocates saw the measures as a fundamental threat to tens of thousands of families.
Is there a word in that summary that would be challenged by trans activists?
There is no need to work through the whole story looking at how the Post has framed this debate. This is a sermon preached to a very specific choir — although there are implications that the reporter knows that the key issue is winning the support of cautious Black political (and religious?) leaders.
Here is another long, long passage that captures the essence of this piece:
Just before noon, two dozen legislators rushed in and grabbed one of the sack lunches the Southern Poverty Law Center had purchased at Panera Bread. While they ate, Bell and his best friend, a nonbinary person named TC Caldwell, headed to the front. Bell had found that many Southerners struggle to understand trans people, so he and Caldwell started the presentation with something more familiar. Caldwell nodded at a sack.
“What makes a sandwich a sandwich?” Caldwell asked the group.
“Bread?” one lawmaker ventured. “Mustard?”
“Peanut butter!” an older lawmaker shouted. Bell clapped his hands in approval.
“That’s a sandwich, especially if you grew up poor,” he said.
The older lawmaker nodded his head, then Barbara Drummond, the vice-chair of the House Democratic Caucus, interrupted and pointed at a woman waving from the wings.
“I apologize for this interruption,” Drummond said, “but she was not here at the beginning and we’re in their building.”
Kim Adams, a lawyer whose husband is the head of the Poultry & Egg Association, scurried to the front. She wanted to remind everyone that an Alabama tourism group was holding a bash that night.
“Bring yourself, your staff, your spouse and anybody you have in town," she said. "It’s a big event, and tourism is a huge portion of our state’s economy.”
Adams finished her spiel, and Drummond told Bell he could continue. He looked around the room and tried to regain the momentum he’d been building.
Thomas “Action” Jackson, a lawmaker in his 70s, raised his hand.
“There’s a traditional sandwich and a nontraditional sandwich,” Jackson said.
He flashed Bell a big smile and a thumbs up.
“Right,” Bell said. “If I was eating a sandwich, and I said, ‘Hey, I don’t want tomatoes on my cheesesteak,’ does that mean that you can’t have tomatoes on your cheesesteak? It doesn’t. I’m not going to make the tomato plant illegal. I’m not going to penalize the farmer for growing tomatoes. I’m not going to penalize you for having tomatoes. And I’m not going to tell on my friends because they have tomatoes. I can exist in this space, and you can exist in that space, and there’s room for both of us.”
Did I miss a second story that balanced this piece? Did I miss an attempt by the Post to deal with the beliefs of Alabama citizens on the other side?
Just asking.
FIRST IMAGE: Screenshot from video posted at the Facebook page of Knights & Orchids Inc.