The Associated Press Stylebook sets a fairly helpful standard for media coverage of transgender subjects. According to the AP “sex changes” entry, reporters are to:

Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics (by hormone therapy, body modification, or surgery) of the opposite sex and present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth. If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.

So why does Jessie L. Bonner’s recent AP profile of transgender mayoral candidate Melissa Sue Robinson keep zig-zagging between male and female pronouns? Robinson has acquired female physical characteristics, and prefers the female pronoun. And yet, Bonner’s story refers to Robinson with female signifiers (she, her) 17 times, and male signifiers (he, him, his) six times.

Read More “How the AP Stylebook Fails Transgender Subjects” »

What is with Vice Presidential candidates causing stirs over unwed mamas?

FINALLY: FIANCEE TURNS BABYDADDY, says Sharon Cobb, who thinks the whole blessed holy matrimony schtick Palin paraded the kids around for was just some racist bullshit to begin with:

Why is it that when a white teenage woman gets pregnant out of wedlock it’s a ‘blessed event’ and the father is the ‘fiancé,’ but a person of color is someone we think of as someone on welfare and the man is just the baby daddy? . . . Racism. Alive and sick in America. That’s the difference, and had the Obamas had an 18 year old daughter who was pregnant during the election, you know damn well the stereotypes would have run rampant.

Cobb ends her smack-down by sending Bristol some well-wishes: “Hopefully, her baby daddy former flame will participate as a father.”

Read More “Daily Palin: From Fiancé to Babydaddy Edition” »

Above: Associate Press video of last week’s March for Life activities. But before you watch, beware! This footage has not been approved by the seasoned media critics over at the comment section at ProLifeBlogs.com. Among their critiques:

“Why is it that the prolifers can go through the entire march without spotting a single proabortion counter protester, but the MSM can always find them and give them airtime?”

“Notice too how they mostly interview a white male for the prolife side, and the woman for the pro-choice side? That’s another myth they love to perpetuate, that it’s only or mostly white men who are prolife. WHat a crock of doo-doo.”

“AP is worthless. Have been for a long, long while.”

* In case you missed it: Washington Post reports killer story on drunk man who finds bed in wrong home. The story just keeps getting better. The lede is solid:

There’s drunken confusion, and then there’s the place that a 50-year-old Montgomery County man found himself—in the wrong bed in the wrong house.

The late night snack graf is darling:

Bob Breiner walked upstairs to the master bedroom and flipped on a lamp. Less than two feet away: a man he’d never seen, wrapped in blankets, sound asleep. On the floor were shoes, socks and pants. Earlier, the man had apparently helped himself to a crab cake from the refrigerator.

But this quote makes the story:

One of the officers asked him whether—upon entering the house and seeing a white Persian cat—he realized he was at the wrong place. “I thought maybe my wife had gone out and gotten another cat,” he told the officer, the Breiners said.

* New PSA tries to get kids not to use “gay” as a derogatory term. “Will a public service announcement help make accepting homosexuality more OK among kids?” asks Jessica of Tango Mag. “Or is that idea. . . totally gay?”

* Gawker posts a scan of what is claimed to be Sarah Palin’s report card from her senior year at Wasilla High (above). The grade sheet hasn’t been confirmed to be “real,” but doesn’t the reported 841 out of 1600 SAT score jibe with your own stereotypical assumptions of Sarah Palin’s horrifically deficient intelligence? And isn’t that the true test of “reality”?

* Nepalese living goddesses grow up so fast! The Associated Press gives the profile treatment to the three-year-old girl who “will be worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists as an incarnation of the powerful Hindu deity Taleju” . . . for now. The girl will live as a goddess in Katmandu “until she reaches puberty and loses her divine status.”