{"id":267091,"date":"2023-04-01T06:02:55","date_gmt":"2023-04-01T06:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=267091"},"modified":"2023-04-02T06:38:12","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T06:38:12","slug":"cbs-execs-bar-the-word-transgender-from-reports-on-nashville-shooter-this-is-not-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=267091","title":{"rendered":"CBS execs bar the word \u2018transgender\u2019 from reports on Nashville shooter: \u2018This is not journalism\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexandra Steingrad \u2013 New York Post March 30, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Top executives at CBS News have banned staffers from using the word \u201ctransgender\u201d when reporting on Nashville shooter \u2014 despite the fact police have said Audrey Hale was transgender and cited it as a key point in the case, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shooter\u2019s gender identity has not been confirmed by CBS News,\u201d the network\u2019s executives insisted in a Tuesday memo obtained by The Post. \u201cAs such, we should avoid any mention of it as it has no known relevance to the crime. Should that change, we can and will revisit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CBS News directive was delivered on a Tuesday morning editorial call by Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, the executive vice president of newsgathering; and Claudia Milne, the senior vice president of standards and practices, according to sources close to the Tiffany Network.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now we advise saying: POLICE IDENTIFIED THE SUSPECT AS A 28-YEAR-OLD AUDREY HALE, WHO THEY SHOT AND KILLED AT THE SCENE,\u201d the Tuesday memo said. \u201cAnd move on to focus on other important points of the investigation, community and solutions.<\/p>\n

CBS asked employees to avoid identifying shooter Audrey Hale as transgender in its reporting, even though the police provided the information as part of its investigation.Linkedin\/Audrey Hale<\/p>\n

Sources said Ciprian-Matthews and Milne spent 15 minutes on the Tuesday call discussing the directive \u2014 bewildering many journalists, given that the Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Hale was transgender and that her identity<\/a> may be relevant to the motive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is absurd because the police identified Hale as transgender,\u201d a CBS insider said. \u201cIf the cops didn\u2019t address it, maybe you could avoid it but withholding information is not journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision has since been reflected in the network\u2019s coverage. Hours after the shooting on Monday morning, correspondent Janet Shamlian reported on \u201cCBS Evening News with Norah O\u2019Donnell,\u201d that Hale \u201cidentifies as transgender.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following CBS\u2019 Tuesday call, however, the mentions of Hale\u2019s gender identity stopped.<\/p>\n

Norah O\u2019Donnell\u2019s \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d program stopped mentioning Hale\u2019s transgender identity after CBS News execs made a network-wide decision. CBS via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are waiting to see the Manifesto and any details about motive,\u201d a CBS spokeswoman told The Post. \u201cAs we say in our guidance, we will then review and revise our reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CBS spokeswoman declined to comment further.<\/p>\n

The Tuesday call with the CBS News execs left the network\u2019s roughly 150 staffers stunned into awkward silence, according to a source who was on the call.<\/p>\n

The source noted that the two CBS News execs appeared to be \u201ctwisting themselves in knots\u201d by censoring the reporting over their own \u201cliberal bias,\u201d which is ultimately a \u201cdisservice\u201d to the network\u2019s audience.<\/p>\n

CBS News execs Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews (pictured here) and Claudia Milne held a call to inform staffers to avoid reporting Hale\u2019s transgender identity.CBS News<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to look at all the facts of the case,\u201d the angry CBS source told The Post. \u201cEveryone should be invested in understanding what happened. I don\u2019t know how you do that without understanding the full scope of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rivals including NBC News, ABC News, CNN and the New York Times have all reported that police said Hale was transgender and used he\/him pronouns and the name Aiden.<\/p>\n

On NBC News, anchor Lester Holt on Tuesday interviewed Drake, Nashville\u2019s police chief<\/a>, noting that police had said Hale \u201cidentified as trans\u201d and asking, \u201cDo you believe there is a connection to that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Drake, who earlier in the day had told reporters that Hale \u201cdoes identify as transgender\u201d \u2014 responded that \u201cwe\u2019re still in the initial investigation into all of that and if it actually played a role into this incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

CBS News\u2019 Claudia Milne told one employee that the network would evaluate facts about Hale\u2019s identity on a case by case basis, a source said. CBS News<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, sources said CBS execs are refusing to report on that aspect of the investigation of the shooting, in which Hale allegedly killed three children and three adults.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we communicating to our readers and viewers that they cannot handle the basic facts of the case?\u201d the source added.<\/p>\n

When CBS on Wednesday reported on Twitter\u2019s suspension of Marjorie Taylor Green\u2019s account <\/a>over a \u201cvengeance\u201d post, it merely mentioned Hale\u2019s treatment for an \u201cemotional disorder,\u201d citing information that was released a day earlier.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A still image from surveillance video provided by the Metro Nashville Police Department shows Hale stalking the halls of the school during the shooting.ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n

During Tuesday\u2019s call, one employee asked how to navigate the transgender issue during the news gathering process if reporters interviewed friends and family of Hale and the subject came up.<\/p>\n

Milne said each situation would have to be assessed individually, which one insider said sounded like those details would be \u201celiminated\u201d from the report.<\/p>\n

The network may run into scrutiny when more details of Hale\u2019s manifesto, \u201cstruggles\u201d and \u201cemotional\u201d issues are released, a second source added.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t avoid who this person is,\u201d the source said, before turning to Ciprian-Matthews and Milne. \u201cThis is not an editorial decision. They made a judgment based on personal feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In effect, CBS has been censoring news reports according to guidelines dictated by CBS executes own liberal bias <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":266967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42,58,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-Current_Affairs","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=267091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267092,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267091\/revisions\/267092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/266967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=267091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=267091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=267091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}