It’s no secret that the relationship between the trans community and the paper of record is, shall we say, fraught. There have been prominent call-outs, an Onion skewering, and an open letter from New York Times contributors criticizing their reporting on trans stories. In my own work tracing anti-trans narratives in the U.S., Times stories have come up a fair few times.

How did the New York Times get to this point in its coverage about trans youth? And how does an anti-trans editorial slant translate into the way reporters of these stories treat their sources? 

I got more clarity after Times reporter Azeen Ghorayshi’s story rehashing the allegations of a discredited former clinic worker in St. Louis came out. I had the opportunity to speak at length with three of the parents she’d interviewed: Jennifer Harris Dault, whose family moved from Missouri to New York to ensure their 8-year-old could access gender-affirming care, Becky Hormuth, whose trans son continues to rely on the St. Louis clinic, and Heidi, mom to a college-age trans girl. 

Hormuth told me she first encountered Ghorayshi as part of a group meeting with other parents organized by local LGBTQ+ groups. She described a 3+ hour session where parents told their stories in tears and saw Ghorayshi herself tearing up in response — which led parents like Hormuth and Harris Dault to confide in a reporter whose history of coverage had been previously criticized by the trans community. 

That empathy was at odds with what Heidi told me. Like a cartoon villain, Ghorayshi was so insistent that Heidi stayed in the story that Ghorayshi followed her out of a courthouse to her car, at one point standing in the car door to stop Heidi and her husband from driving away — way outside the norm for reporting practices as I understood them. 

Reporters tend to be good listeners, good at gaining people’s trust without fully tipping their hand. It wasn’t until I heard these experiences that it drove home to me how little Ghorayshi cared about potentially hurting her sources. For Ghorayshi, getting the story was what mattered above all else.

Heidi’s daughter was a patient at the St. Louis clinic whose medical history showed up in former worker Jamie Reed’s allegations of the clinic’s wrongdoing. Her family was devastated to see their private information twisted and misrepresented to attack access to treatment that had changed their daughter’s life. Their aim in telling their story was to finally expose Reed.

Heidi provided emails directly contradicting what Reed said the family’s response had been, thinking proof of outright distortions would be enough to highlight Reed’s lies. Instead, after seeing Ghorayshi’s warm interactions with Reed at a courthouse where she was testifying about her allegations, Heidi became suspicious, leading to a dramatic pre-publication confrontation. 

The reporter played hardball with the devastated family — and won.

Their story remained in the Times piece, de-emphasized and tucked into the end of a story that muddied readers’ sense of whether Reed’s allegations had been confirmed or not.Ghorayshi’s behavior comes from a place trans people who have interacted with skeptical reporters will know. It’s particularly stark because she treated Reed, an activist with the anti-trans group Genspect — whom she literally caught misrepresenting events — as a whistleblower in good faith, putting over a dozen parents’ stories on equal footing with her lies. 

The trans community are often treated as activists pushing an agenda when we tell our stories, not as human beings sharing the truth in good faith.

And this story represents an impulse to place the accounts of people opposing gender-affirming care and other trans rights issues on a pedestal, while undermining and casting doubt on the honest stories of trans folk.

It doesn’t have to be this way! While some reporters seem to believe there’s tension between telling the full truth and treating trans people’s stories with respect, it’s just not true. One group trying to help reporters do better is the Trans Journalists Association (of which I’m a proud member), which recently updated and expanded their style guide to help reporters understand the best practices in stories about trans folks.

You can read the full story on Assigned Media here.

—Evan Urquhart 

It's not too late to get our first print magazine, The Reckoning in Food Media! Flip through reported and first-person criticism of food media coverage, along with looks to how food media can improve.

Trauma-informed journalism training’s importance: For The Objective, Angelica Cabral argues for the importance of trauma-informed journalism training — especially in J-schools — with more young reporters being assigned to cover mass shootings. This training, Cabral writes, benefits both reporters and the communities they cover. (The Objective)

Texas Tribune fails to address concerns on first-ever layoffs: The 11-person layoff shocked staff and eliminated not only the newsroom’s copy desk but its criminal justice beat. Management didn’t comment on the decision to cut those specific sections of the newsroom, citing difficulty securing revenue, optimistic revenue predictions and new hires as reasons for the layoffs. A GoFundMe to support laid-off staff is still open. (Austin Chronicle) 

Another lapsed promise at G/O Media Group: The Onion and Gizmodo Media Group unions reported that all four Gizmodo Español employees were replaced en masse with an undisclosed AI translation service, contradicting the G/O Media CEO’s repeated insistence that AI was meant to supplement human writing, not replace it. This follows a widespread exodus of G/O Media editors-in-chief: Seven have left in the past eight months. (GMG Union on X/Twitter)

Philanthropy increasingly shores up newsroom budgets: A study unveiled last month analyzes a survey that garnered 129 funder and 431 news organization respondents. While a majority of funders — 64% — said they prefer to fund nonprofit news, only half of the responding news outlets serving communities of color said their funding had increased. (Media Impact Funders)

AP publishes newsroom guidance on AI: The guidelines stress the importance of human editing and warn about several pitfalls of generative AI. While AP has a licensing agreement with OpenAI — which continues to announce partnerships with journalism organizations like the American Journalism Institute — they are prohibited from using it to make publishable content. (Poynter, Associated Press) 

NABJ and PABJ split deepens: After an announcement from the National Association of Black Journalists that a NABJ members sought to create a new NABJ-Philly chapter, PABJ President Ernest Owens published a memo to membership clarifying that current members joining the NABJ-Philly chapter were unable to “double-dip” membership between the two organizations. PABJ, a nonprofit that predates NABJ, disaffiliated from the national organization last December. (NABJ announcement, PABJ memo)

4 days until … the “Is your COVID shot covered?” webinar. The National Press Foundation webinar will walk reporters through the landscape of COVID-19 vaccine coverage, especially with a new booster shot coming in fall and rising cases across the country.

4 days until … the “Lessons from pro-democracy newsrooms” webinar. Hosted by the Solutions Journalism Network, this is one of several webinars focused on going beyond horse-race coverage both in preparation for and after the 2024 election. (The Objective is one of the network’s partners on these webinars.)

5 days until … Defector’s third birthday party. Held in the Lower East Side, the event offers an opportunity to meet Defector staffers. It will feature blog readings and free stickers, and no cover charge to attend is required.

Looking for a job? Here are a few places to look: INN | ONA | JournalismJobs.com | 10 Jobs and a Dog | NABJ | AAJA | NAHJ | NLGJA | @WritersofColor | MEO Jobs | Freelance Journalist Rates | Source Jobs | Opportunities of the Week ($) | West Coast Media Jobs

How about a style guide? Trans Journalist Association | Diversity Style Guide | Tribal Nations Media Guide | NABJ Style Guide | Disability Language Style Guide | AAJA Guide to Covering Asian Pacific America | NAHJ Cultural Competence Handbook |  SPJ Race & Gender Hotline | AMEJA Media Resource Guide | The Press in Prison | The Conscious Style Guide

Thanks for reading our newsletter, and for your patience on our impromptu one-issue break. We appreciate you being here, and we’ll have more for you soon.

This issue is by Evan Urquhart and James Salanga, with edits by James Salanga, Jen Ramos Eisen, and Omar Rashad.