The New York Times is supposed to be one of the leading news sources in America. What happened to the neutrality of this organization? The newspaper went after transgender teens with talking points from the white, Christian right. How can a neutral reporting agency go after a group with only talking points from ONE side? That is what this book investigates.

This is a good expose on a very pressing issue, sounding a clarion call about how a long-respected paper, one treated as the pinnacle of journalism where the best of the best go to play, is being hijacked and could serve to launch a flurry of persecution against a marginalized group, an offense as shameful as their cheerleading of the Iraq War. In the name of centrism and being Fair and Balanced™️, the New York Times has already allowed itself to be warped and transformed and in the name of gaining more subscribers, they’re going to throw trans people under the bus.

My quibble is that this book feels somewhat incomplete, more like an extended article than a proper book.

Bad ink: how the New York Times sold out transgender teens - Riki Wilchins

“I believe we need a New York Times. I just don't believe we need this New York Times”
4☆|5

As I read the last words written by Riki Wilchins in this book, I finally let tears out of my eyes. Tears of frustration and anger, mostly. I finally finished navigating this intimidating book, and it was certainly a heavy read, which usually comes with such heavy subjects. This is truly a well-done and fantastic book. It takes hundreds of pages to debunk transphobic misinformation shared by the NYT since the newspaper saw a change of publisher in 2015.

Indeed, since then and for the last 10 years, the Times has dedicated dozens of articles, attacking transgenders teenagers and kids on all plans. Medical transitions, “increase” of the number of trans people, social transition, … Everything. This book can be a really heavy reading because we can read and see all that hate and transphobia. But we can also see the author brilliantly debunking it, point by point. Adding additional study results that were not covered by the Times - we all wonder why - explaining exactly how the Times shifted its treatment of transgender people.

This book is brilliant, and I do believe that it's a necessary reading - if only to counter the argument that the right wing is being “stupid” because they are not, they know exactly what they are doing, and the Times knew as well when it started listening to them and giving them the floor - but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. Because even if it debunks the transphobia, it is still there. It took me multiple weeks to read it because I often needed breaks from it because I couldn't deal with it anymore. So please take care and make sure that it's okay with you before reading it. But it is truly an interesting book.

Thanks to Netgalley and Riverdale Avenue Books for sending me an eARC for this book!

I got this as an arc on Netgalley and it has since come out. Media isn't unbiased and this book explains how. The focus is on NyT but a lot of what happens with them, happens across media. Transhate and transhate groups get a platform for their misinformation and hatred while trans people rarely do. The timeline, the explainations why, and the debunking of misinformation is well done. Required reading.

This book is an extremely helpful resource in understanding the history of the good and bad of journalism with a focus on trans people. I wanted for so long to read a book like this after concluding myself that the right wing attention on trans people is alarming. I’m so thankful this book came around the right time for me and gave me infinitely more insight into why that is! Sometimes, it’s a hard read for me because I didn’t grasp things so easily as a cisgender person, but I’m sure that after reading the footnotes and a few rereads I will understand a lot better.