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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   34693 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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I was just coming in to post about this, because I read about it on CNN:

Nicola Sturgeon unexpectedly quits as first minister of Scotland amid swirl of political setbacks, citing ‘brutality’ of public life

The sum total of CNN's reporting on trans issues:

“First, though I know it will be tempting to see it as such, this decision is not a reaction to short-term pressures,” said Sturgeon, who has been facing increasing tensions with the UK government in London over Scottish independence, as well as Westminster’s decision to block a Scottish law intended to allow trans people in Scotland to change their legal gender without a medical diagnosis.

No mention of putting male rapists in female prisons. It strikes me as an excellent example of the news media spinning stories to deliberately create a false narrative. I'm a little surprised BBC went so far as to actually say:

Ms Sturgeon insisted her resignation was not in response to the "latest period of pressure", which has included controversies over gender reforms, trans prisoners and the strategy on independence.

"Trans prisoners." Yes indeed! Pray tell, what are they in prison for? And what sort of prison was Sturgeon aiming to put them into? Even with BBC's slightly-more-informative take, we do not get the actual story about the actual controversy that has, apparently, sunk Sturgeon at last. The topic is not merely "toxic for everyone," news reporters seem to be genuinely allergic to it.

In fairness, "Scottish government toppled by man in dress" is somewhat of a dog bites man story after the last thousand years. There's only so many times you can run what's fundamentally the same article.

In a few years we will assume that any comment this clever must have been written by an AI.

The topic is not merely "toxic for everyone," news reporters seem to be genuinely allergic to it.

They've decided - helped along by activists - that reporting certain facts leads to an increase in bigotry - since it's axiomatic that the public disagreeing with a policy for an (allegedly) "Oppressed Group" is bigotry.

Therefore it is their job to save the laity from bad interpretations of facts they're clearly not equipped to draw the right conclusions from.

Basically the same thing with obscuring data about black crime or the race of a particular perpetrator in headlines.

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