By Noah Rothman
Wednesday, June 07, 2023
The defenestration of CNN chief Chris Licht, which was
prompted by many contributing factors and was definitely not
solely attributable to a staff-wide revolt over the network’s decision to host
a townhall with Donald Trump, was preceded by a cavalcade of think pieces about
his contributions to the network’s manifest deficiencies.
Many such offerings attributed the Licht-led network’s
troubles to structural factors, the boss’s detachment from the day-to-day, and
ambitious but destabilizing business ventures that didn’t pan out. One of the
more intellectually honest efforts to explain CNN’s travails was penned
by Washington Post opinion writer Perry Bacon Jr., who
crystalized not only the problem afflicting this network but all news media in
a tidy theory of everything: the press is just too darn centrist.
As Bacon notes, Licht assumed his position operating
under the flawed assumption that he had taken control of a news outlet rather
than an institution dedicated to providing a service to a narrow constituent
group. In his role, he admonished journalists to “not virtue signal. Tell
the truth. Ask questions getting at the truth.” The cad.
Licht also encouraged skepticism and the critical
evaluation of the perspectives reinforced by the social biases dominant on
America’s coasts. That is where it all went wrong, according to Bacon.
“Licht’s comments embody an anti-woke centrism that is
increasingly prominent in American media and politics today, particularly among
powerful White men who live on the coasts and don’t identify as Republicans or conservatives,” Bacon wrote. “By anti-woke, what I mean is skepticism of
progressive causes and ideas, especially on issues of gender, race and
sexuality.”
This is a valuable contention because it is a falsifiable
premise. Its validity can be tested. In that effort, let’s survey the
ostensibly centrist media landscape over the last 72 hours or so in relation to
its coverage of issues with progressive valance — primarily, the culture war du
jour over transitioning therapies for children.
Leading the D.C. bubble’s publication of record, Politico, this morning, reporter Liz Crampton previews
a Democratic effort to blunt Republican attacks on progressive social
engineering in public schools by throwing money at them. The contrast Democrats
hope to establish is obvious, but not so obvious that the piece trusts you to
draw the proper conclusions. So, it holds your hand and drags you toward them
by summarizing Republican objections to, for example, the promotion of surgical
and pharmaceutical remedies to gender dysphoria in minors.
Their social agenda also centered
on passing legislation restricting the rights of trans children by banning
minors from receiving gender-affirming care and requiring that student athletes
play on sports teams correlating with their assigned sex at birth.
Hardly a neutral framing here. Nor is there any evidence
that the outlet was reluctant to engage with subject matter that pings the
cultural nerve centers of left-wing social reformers. But maybe this is an
outlier.
What about Axios — increasingly media’s
go-to daily tip sheet whose mission statement explicitly rejects the promotion of
“opinion” and pledges never to engage in “incitement or argument.” How does
this outlet handle the news that a Clinton-appointed U.S. district
judge yesterday temporarily blocked the application of Florida laws restricting
“gender-affirming care” for minors?
The Florida lawsuit is one of many
filed in various states that have adopted bans on health care for trans minors.
Gender-affirming care is supported by major medical organizations, and has been
deemed as medically necessary and potentially lifesaving for trans youth by the
American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Okay. What about NBC News — specifically, MSNBC’s
flagship morning show Morning Joe, which in my personal experience
on the network genuinely strives to provide equal access to viewpoints in opposition
to progressive orthodoxy? Are they, too, broadcasting chic pablum that
fetishizes false equivalences for the sake of mere appearances? Let’s check
in on today’s broadcast.
Hmm. Well, what about the outlets Bacon calls out for
their institutional commitment to blinkered, milquetoast centrism: the New
York Times and the Washington Post.
The Times recently updated a widget that
tracks state-level laws “restricting gender-affirming medical care for minors,”
a divisive issue it summarizes thusly:
There is continuing research on how
gender-affirming care should be given and when, but the American Academy of
Pediatrics and the American Medical Association support allowing adolescents to
access this care. Advocates and physicians who provide the care say the bills
infringe on the rights of adolescents and parents, legislate decisions that
should be left to doctors and families, and will have mental health
ramifications for trans teens. Advocates for trans care have sued in numerous
states over these laws, and other Democratic-led states have passed laws
protecting transition care for young people.
By contrast, the opposition is granted a single sentence:
“Legislators who support the restrictions have said they are seeking to protect
children from irreversible decisions.” Truly a grotesque display of
“bothsidesism.”
How about the Post? Its coverage of a
restriction on “gender-affirming care for minors” in Texas included by now
routine appeals to the authority of U.S. medical boards who reject emerging
best practices in Europe for treating children struggling with gender
dysphoria, which increasingly emphasize psychological care. But the Post also
devoted detailed coverage to the plight of families who style themselves
“political refugees” as they pursue hormonal treatments for their children out
of state.
Fine. What about CNN – a venue allegedly so committed to
catering to the sensibilities of the vast, squishy middle that it sacrificed
its remit as a news outlet? How did this network navigate this thorny issue and
the legislative backlash against irreversible medical interventions for
children:
Gender-affirming care spans a range
of evidence-based treatments and approaches that benefit transgender and
nonbinary people. The types of care vary by the age and goals of the recipient,
and are considered the standard of care by many mainstream medical
associations.
Though the care is highly
individualized, some children and parents may decide to use reversible puberty
suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy
that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. The surgical procedures that
the bill seeks to limit, however, are not typically done on children and many
health care providers do not offer them to minors.
Ah. So, not only are these procedures safe, effective,
and necessary, they’re not even happening.
If all this is what passes for “skepticism of progressive
causes and ideas,” we can at least see why the occasional executive emerges
from obscurity now and then to rein in the herd instincts that dominate the
media monolith. Or, rather, you could if you weren’t reflexively hostile to
even the rote and perfunctory inclusion of a sentence or two explicating
conservative objections to this practice, if only to bury them under great
heaps of sanctimony and fallacious argumentation.
Media’s commitment to “anti-woke centrism” doesn’t seem
to have cost any of the reporters, producers, or executives who produce this
content their jobs. Licht will have to think long and hard about that as he
descends to earth dangling from a golden parachute.
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