Posts Tagged ‘Washington Post’
Know Your Indecent Exposure Rights
Ever wondered exactly what you have to do with your penis to be charged with indecent exposure in Virginia? Need to know what sort of aperture you have to be looking through in order to be convicted of peeping? The Washington Post is here to help!
Washington Post “Dares” to Call Lindsay Lohan “Haggard”
In an editorial slide-show titled Lindsay Lohan: A Metamorphosis, the Washington Post’s Liz Kelly revisits the many looks the 23-year-old starlet has cultivates over the years. But this is no style retrospective treatment, a la Madonna’s chameleon-like fashion choices or Tyra’s wacky wigs. This slide-show is focused exclusively on each stage of Lohan’s career, and whether or not she looked ugly in it!
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Sexist Comments of the Week: Transgender Shoplift Edition
Last week, two stories on the Washington Post’s gender treatment for a couple of transgender shoplifting suspects (Washington Post Cross-Dressing Shoplifting Story Misfires; Transgender Shoplifting Story’s Absurd Corrections) inspired confusion, transphobia, and some helpful commentary!
The story: A couple of transgender women are caught shoplifting, and end up being shot by police after a botched getaway. In a medical examination, the suspects are revealed to have male genitalia. So: The Post first reported that the suspects were women, then reported that they were cross-dressing men, and finally issued a vague clarification that the suspects were still men dressed as women, but “were not in disguise.” Was the Post’s treatment insensitive? Incorrect? Or the lone crusader for truth in a PC world?
Carisa Cunningham appreciates the teaching moment:
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Transgender Shoplifting Story Inspires Absurd Corrections
NBC Washington shows what happens when news outlets fail to confirm the correct gender identity of their subjects before publication. The outlet has just posted another story about the two shoplifting suspects who were shot by police near the University of Maryland last Friday. Here’s the absurd lede:
Upon closer review, it appears two shoplifting suspects shot by a Prince George’s County police officer weren’t men, as originally reported, or cross-dressers, as was later reported, but transgender women.
The third time is the charm for NBC, who took four days to get the gender identity of the suspects right. NBC does one better on the Washington Post, at least. The Post first reported that the suspects were women, then reported that they were cross-dressing men, and finally issued the vague and misleading clarification that they were men dressed as women who “were not in disguise.”
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Did the Washington Post Censor the Boning?
Today’s inevitable Washington Post feature on people who aren’t on Facebook actually got a little bit interesting when it turned its attentions to Ricardo Thomas, 23. Thomas “hates typing and computers,” but he does rely on more connected friends to help him Facebook stalk his ex-girlfriend. Thomas doesn’t call her is ex-girlfriend, however. This is what Thomas says to reporter Ian Shapira:
“Last week, I was over at a friend’s house, and he showed me a picture on Facebook of a girl I used to” date, Thomas said.
Woah! Isn’t it interesting how expertly Shapira snipped that quote juuuust before Thomas was about to describe, in his own words, what he “used to” do with that girl on Facebook?
Football Bloggers Attempt to Tackle Misogyny, Homophobia Ensues
Today, Washington Post NFL site The League took up the issue of misogyny in professional cheerleading:
I was really impressed that the Post chose to ask its seven resident football bloggers this question: Should football cheerleading squads be disbanded because they are a misogynist tradition? But then the bloggers were all like: “Nope!”
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Who Botched the Gender Identity of a D.C. Homicide Victim?
Vigil attendees pay their respects to Tyli’a Mack.
On Wednesday, Aug. 26, one person was killed and another critically injured in a daytime stabbing outside 209 Q St. NW. In the hours following the homicide, police and reporters gathered witness testimony, formed a description of the suspect, and chased likely motives. This time, cops and journalists were also forced to devote resources to another developing story: the gender of the victims.
Within three hours of the incident, three local news sources had independently verified the victims’ gender identity with police. They all got it wrong.
Fox 5 news reporter Roby Chavez gave this report at 3:59 p.m., about an hour and a half after the stabbings occurred. “D.C. Police sources tell Fox 5 officers found two transgender male victims in front of the building when they arrived,” Chavez reported.
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Barring Male Educators: Safety Concern, Fear-Mongering, Or Discrimination?
Yesterday, Washington Post “On Parenting” contributor Brian Reid let loose a little parenting secret: He would never hire a male tutor for his elementary-aged daughter. In “Little Girls, College Guys—and Nervous Parents,” Reid writes:
We had a rough set of criteria: the tutor had to be an exceptional speaker, had to be good with kids and had to have the kind of schedule where a year-long commitment wasn’t going to end the moment the schoolwork picked up.
It turns out there was also another — unspoken — requirement: the tutor ought to be a woman. This was something my wife and I both felt in our gut, even though I knew it made me a huge hypocrite.
Why no male educators in the Reid household? That’s another thing that Reid leaves “unspoken” throughout the piece, but the intent is clear: He’s afraid a male tutor would molest his daughter.
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This Week in Sexist History: Crazy Bitches Edition
Newspaper stories from the good old days say the darndest things. So every week on the Sexist, let’s take a ride on journalism’s way-back machine, to a time when all female behavior could be explained away simply. Sure, turn-of-the-century journos called it “insanity,” “mania,” or “hysteria,” but we know the real diagnosis: She’s a crazy bitch.
According to historical Washington Post archives, August is a banner month for crazy bitches. But there’s a quick solution for any late-summer onset of the vapors, whether it’s from the heat, a cheatin’ man, or a too-full pocket book: oh, just throw her in the insane asylum! (The therapeutic pelvic massage comes later).
Diagnosis: It’s hot.
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Washington Post Needs to Go “Gay”
Recently, a couple of prominent gay bloggers have criticized mainstream media outlets major and minor for preferring the term “homosexual” over “gay” in its news coverage. Among the storied publications hanging on to archaic terminology for dear life? The Washington Post.
Earlier this month, John Aravosis’s praised the Washington Post for an op-ed supporting gay marriage—before quickly criticizing the paper for its incessant use of “homosexual” throughout the piece. In his indictment of the Post, Aravosis raises an interesting point about mainstream media coverage of shifting cultural attitudes. Even as a newspaper’s coverage tends towards the progressive—as is the case of the WaPo editorial—its commitment to formal style often keeps the discussion mired in the traditional.
