Good journalism can educate and empower us, but shoddy journalism can just as easily marginalize and disenfranchise individuals through misinformation.
News sites with immense resources and impressionable audiences can intentionally frame their coverage of sensitive issues in order to serve political or social agendas. The question of bias and intent is something American readers are increasingly aware of, but it is all too easy to miss how bias, reporting and research can come together to make news that is misleading and possibly harmful to those with significantly less influence.
Just recently, an example of poor reporting found wide circulation and had a negative impact on LGBTQ+ students. On March 1, the conservative news outlet Campus Reform published an article covering the proliferation of pamphlets from the Kennesaw Pride Alliance listing gender-neutral pronouns and their conjugations.
Campus Reform’s mission statement is to “expose liberal bias on American campuses.” This reporting was founded on a single account from a KSU student claiming that an administrator was handing out pamphlets. The article says that KSU was contacted about the matter but “did not respond in time for publication.”
An official statement from KSU also said there is no official policy regarding distribution by administrators. Since the pamphlet’s publication, outlets such as Fox News and The Blaze have picked up the story, with The Blaze going to the extent of blatantly mocking KSU’s LGBTQ Student Programs and claiming that codifying and discussing gender-neutral pronouns is a ploy to “punish” non-liberal academics.
While this poor reporting was aimed largely at KSU, the negative consequences affect LGBTQ+ KSU community members. The argument against gender-neutral pronouns in the article has been that it is all “made up,” ignoring the fact that people commonly coin new language to describe their experience in the world.
The discussion around gender-neutral pronouns is the result of non-binary individuals looking to describe their experiences through language and dialogue. This kind of reporting attempts to outright dismiss the actual experience of queer individuals by calling the emerging vocabulary made up and invoking slippery slope arguments. Even worse, it actively courts negative attention toward marginalized people and results in harassment.
Anonymous students associated with KPA and the LGBTQ+ community said they have experienced vulgar harassment since the article’s release, as well as threats involving the release of their personal information. What began as an attempt to start a dialogue around the real experiences of non-binary people has resulted in harassment due to shoddy, irresponsible journalism taking cheap shots at a vulnerable population.
Journalism is one of the great mediators of the modern age because it allows media consumers to have direct access to invaluable hordes of information. It is incredibly important, therefore, to account for the ethics of reporting valid and honest information, especially when dealing with a group that has been historically marginalized in culture, law and representation.
