Editorial: Don’t panic, it’s just a moral panic

Two years ago, over 100 leaders, organizations and New York Times staff writers signed a letter through GLAAD — the world’s largest LGBT media advocacy organization — calling for the newspaper to reevaluate its coverage of stories concerning transgender issues. 

The coverage in the The New York Times relating to transgender people was often indiscriminately repeating information from non-expert sources. Reporters left out the voices of transgender people and debated whether they should have access to healthcare options in their reporting. 

This reporting engaged too closely with the current moral panic, the widespread fear that a cultural behavior or group is a threat to a community’s values, surrounding transgender people. Typically these fears are fueled by media coverage, and as an industry which is meant to serve the public by providing a space for diverse voices and accurate information, news outlets must do better. 

An example of this fear mongering and harmful reporting can be seen in an article from The New York Times covering hormone blockers, which pause puberty for transgender youth but are more commonly used for children going through early onset puberty. 

This article was dissected by organizations who focus on transgender health, alleging the paper didn’t cite anyone who had done peer-reviewed research in the area and had conveniently left out facts that didn’t support the argument. 

In response, The New York Times doubled down. An internal memo written by the executive editor, Joe Kahn, and the opinion editor, Kathleen Kingsbury, was leaked to the public. In the email, they stood by their reporting and denounced staff members that signed the letter, sent by The New York Times contributors, which called for more ethical reporting on transgender issues. 

“Our coverage of transgender issues, including the specific pieces singled out for attack, is important, deeply reported and sensitively written,” Kahn and Kingsbury wrote. 

It’s important to note that no media outlet is perfect, including The Brown and White. There’s always a chance mistakes slip through the cracks of a complicated workflow, and there’s always room for improvement. 

Despite the spotlight currently on The New York Times, the participation of the media in a moral panic is not new. It’s unfortunately common for newspapers to fall into traps where they’re proliferating a moral panic, even when they say they’re committed to unbiased journalism. 

The only way to suffocate a moral panic is to deprive it of what it feeds on — oversimplification. 

It’s natural to want to publish stories with a compelling narrative. However, the most compelling narrative is also often the one that confirms people’s existing fears. Historically, the fears that are reported on and confirmed by the news is the fear of minority groups. 

In July 1967, former President Lyndon B. Johnson formed the Kerner Commission to investigate the “race-riots” that had happened each summer since 1964. They were portrayed as race riots led by militant Black leaders in newspapers, but this was discovered by the Kerner Commission to have been exaggerated by the media. ​​

The commission concluded the media had not covered the issues that Black people face adequately because they were so focused on writing for a white audience and did not use Black people as sources. 

Sourcing significantly impacts the angle and impact of a story.

The Kerner Commission found that an over reliance on “authorities” who were part of biased institutions could lead to biased stories, especially if reporters are disregarding other key perspectives. In contrast, today we’re seeing how The New York Times’ under reliance on experts on transgender health leads to a lack of nuance in reporting. 

As a publication with a majority white, female staff, The Brown and White recognizes it’s as important to evaluate our own representation as it is to critique the reporting of other publications.

As we call out another newspaper for falling into the traps of fear mongering and negligent coverage, we must also listen to the communities we serve when we, too, fall short. This is the balance we are continually striving to achieve.