Top CBS News executives are ordering their staff not to use the word "transgender" while reporting on the Nashville shooter.
This obviously complicates things since, you know... the shooter was transgender.
Even though police have identified the shooter as transgender, CBS News is making a political decision to avoid the facts.
Not exactly very "journalistic" of them...
A memo was delivered on a Tuesday morning editorial call by Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, the executive vice president of newsgathering, and Claudia Milne, the senior vice president of standards and practices, according to The New York Post.
The shooter's gender identity has not been confirmed by CBS News. As such, we should avoid any mention of it as it has no known relevance to the crime. Should that change, we can and will revisit.
Right now we advise saying: POLICE IDENTIFIED THE SUSPECT AS A 28-YEAR-OLD AUDREY HALE, WHO [sic] THEY SHOT AND KILLED AT THE SCENE. And move on to focus on other important points of the investigation, community and solutions.
New York Post sources said the executives spent 15 minutes during the Tuesday call (with about 150 staffers) explaining their reasoning, and it apparently bewildered many of the journalists given that Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said the shooter was transgender and that her identity may be relevant to the motive.
A CBS insider told The Post:
This is absurd because the police identified Hale as transgender. If the cops didn't address it, maybe you could avoid it, but withholding information is not journalism.
The roughly 150 staffers were stunned into "awkward silence," but their coverage quickly reflected their new rule.
Before the Tuesday call, correspondent Janet Shamlian reported on the shooter just hours after it happened, explaining that the shooter "identifies as transgender," but CBS's reports have changed since then.
The Post got a hold of a CBS spokeswoman, and she told them that they are waiting to see the manifesto and details about the motive, after which they will review and revise their reporting.
She declined to make further comments.
The source noted that the two CBS News execs appeared to be "twisting themselves in knots" by censoring the reporting over their own "liberal bias," which is ultimately a "disservice" to the network's audience.
Another angry source told The Post, "you need to look at all the facts of the case."
Everyone should be invested in understanding what happened. I don't know how you do that without understanding the full scope of the situation.
You don't have to be a detective or investigative journalist to question the shooter's motives and connect the dots.
But something is very seriously wrong when an entire media entity refuses to report the facts and purposefully withholds information.
A biological female who identifies as transgender killed three children and three adults.
Her gender identity is not irrelevant. It's part of the story. That fact is a big part of who this person was and how she viewed herself and the world. Her self-proclaimed identity very well could have motivated her killing spree.
Denying that is denying a big problem we are facing in society.
And for a news network to withhold details on this person shows us what's wrong with the media today.
"You can't avoid who this person is," the source said, before turning to Ciprian-Matthews and Milne. "This is not an editorial decision. They made a judgment based on personal feelings."
