It’s a curiosity of the modern era that one is likelier to encounter political propaganda in a news report than in any other aspect of daily life.
From the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times, partisan-tinged doublespeak has become inescapable.
Take, for example, the coverage this week of the Supreme Court’s deliberation on a Tennessee law that prohibits minors from using hormones and puberty blockers to transition to the opposite sex, making irreversible changes to their bodies.
From a cursory glance at the news headlines, you’d think the Supreme Court was preparing to uphold a ban on straightforward, life-saving healthcare services.
“Transgender teen implores Supreme Court to strike Tennessee gender-affirming care ban,” reported ABC News.
The New York Times promised an explanation in a headline that read, “Here’s What Led to Tennessee’s Ban on Gender-Affirming Care.”
“Supreme Court seems likely to uphold ban on gender-affirming care,” reported Axios.
As a matter of pure journalism, these are terrible headlines. They tell us nothing. What, exactly, is being debated before the court? What’s being banned? What does the ban entail? Who does the ban affect? Who knows! The headlines don’t say, which is the point. In the pantheon of political euphemisms, few are as tremendously opaque as “gender-affirming care.” What does this even mean? What does this even cover? Everything? Nothing? Exactly! The gibberish is the point. It’s to obscure precision and exactitude. It’s to avoid saying something possibly uncomfortable — namely, that this specific type of “care” involves irreversible medical regimens and bodily mutilation.
The pro-transgender lobby knows terms such as “puberty blockers” and “hormone therapy” may set off alarms in the public’s collective psyche, so they’ve landed on a tidy phrase that sounds nice but says nothing at all. Who could be against “affirming care” anyway?
That a newsroom would use a euphemism as clunky and vague as “gender-affirming care” over simply explaining what is being debated, namely, a ban on puberty blockers and hormones for minors, gives the game away as far as editorial priorities are concerned.
These news organizations are not in the business of fact. They’re in the business of persuasion, which is to say they’re more political than journalistic. They suffer from ideological capture. This is why, in a profession that trades in spoken and written word, they’d choose carefully focus-grouped euphemisms over clear and concise language. They don’t have a story to tell. They have a belief to sell.
We can see similar examples of this ideological capture elsewhere in the press, particularly in abortion news coverage. Remember, the preferred terms are “anti-abortion” and “abortion rights,” according to the Associated Press style guide. Pro-lifers are stuck with an “anti” tag, while the pro-abortion crowd gets to go home with the word “rights.”
Subtle!
To further illustrate the point, imagine if we took the language adopted by newsrooms for their coverage of abortion- and trans-related matters and applied it to similarly controversial topics. Imagine a reporter referring to slavery as “aggressive work placement.” Imagine a reporter referring to executed death row inmates as “justice-impacted individuals.” You’d never take that reporter seriously again. It is no less crazy to use terms such as “gender-affirming care,” yet here we are, neck deep in “abortion rights” and “gender-affirming care” gobbledygook.
It’s one thing if activist groups want to use coded language to avoid describing the things they support. They’re free to cover up the awful truth of the things they support. However, there’s no reason why CBS, ABC, the New York Times, or any other news organization should follow suit. Yet they do anyway, not because they’ve been bullied into submission, but because they agree with the aims of the activist groups.
That’s why you’re likelier to encounter political propaganda in a basic newswire story than anywhere else in your daily routine.
There’s a war of words out there, and the corporate press has chosen a side.
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Becket Adams is a columnist for the Washington Examiner, National Review, and the Hill. He is also the program director of the National Journalism Center.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
