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.