Learn about The New York Times’ publisher AG Sulzberger’s support of anti-trans disinformation in Episode 5 of The Anti-Trans Hate Machine Animated Series, a companion to Season 2 of TransLash Media’s podcast series The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality.
‘CAPTURING THE NEW YORK TIMES’ TRANSCRIPT
At TransLash we wanted to know why The New York Times lacked fair coverage of trans people. So we spent over a year talking to sources inside and outside the organization to find out what was behind it.
The problem at the Times is undeniable.
Our analysis of Times coverage, in just 2022 alone, found anti-trans disinformation deeply embedded in the paper Of the nearly 10,000 words of front page coverage devoted to trans kids in 2022.
Each piece was trans skeptical, spreading the same disinformation about young trans people that we have detailed throughout this animated series.
But our research took us beyond these words to the person that runs it. Publisher AG Sulzberger.
When AG took over the media organization from his father in 2018, he wanted the paper to be seen more favorably by conservatives across the country. He said that the paper was seen as a “liberal rag” to its detriment.
Clearly an easy to make inroads to these readers is through trans skepticism, even hostility. In fact AG has signaled to the entire company that anti-trans ideas will be platformed there.
He gave the organization’s highest award for a piece chock full of anti-trans disinformation, called “The Battle Over Gender Therapy.” It included voices like Abigail Shrier and organizations like GENSPECT that peddle pseudoscientific ideas.
Now while not every single article from the Times is hostile to trans people, the balance is clear.
The New York Times has become a platform that’s all too willing to launder discredited ideas and give them unimaginable legitimacy.
To learn more about our coverage of The New York Times visit www.translash.org/antitranshatemachine.
ABOUT THIS SERIES
The Anti-Trans Hate Machine Animated Series, part of our #AntiTransHateMachine campaign, explains in easy to access videos how anti-trans pseudoscience and disinformation has become widely accepted as fact. From conversion therapy, to rapid onset gender dysphoria, to “watchful waiting,” a vast network of Christian Nationalist organizations and bad-actors have used both rightwing and mainstream media to change the way an entire nation thinks about the validity of trans people.
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