Podcast: Is Colorado Springs covered by a 'fundamentalist' blanket of hate?

At this point, there are many, many crucial facts that journalists do not know about the horrible Club Q massacre in Colorado Springs.

This lack of facts has done little to shape the coverage. We do not, for example, know if Mx. Anderson Aldrich is sincere when claiming, in case documents, to be nonbinary. It will, in the meantime, be interesting to see if many mainstream newsrooms choose to deadname Aldrich in their coverage, perhaps by striving to avoid pronouns altogether.

We do know that the alleged shooter was raised in a broken home with multiple mental-health and violence issues. Consider, for example, the father — an ex-con MMA fighter turned porn star (and a Republican, of one form or another).

At this point, it does appear that some journalists — while searching for the “why” in the “who, what, when, where, why and how” formula — have decided to place the city of Colorado Springs on trial and, perhaps, the whole state of Colorado. This was the primary topic discussed in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

The key: A return of that dreaded journalism F-word — “fundamentalist.” For more background on this religion-beat disease, please see this GetReligion post by Richard Ostling (“What is 'Fundamentalism'? Name 666 or so examples from recent news coverage”) and this On Religion column (“Define ‘fundamentalist,’ please”) that I wrote in 2011.

Here is the key material from a USA Today story that, in my opinion, goes completely over the top while claiming that, to be blunt, a kind of hate cloud covers Colorado Springs. The headline: “Colorado Springs worked to change its anti-gay image — then its sole LGBTQ nightclub was targeted.”

Most notably, in 1992, religious fundamentalists from Colorado Springs wrote Amendment 2, a measure seeking to amend Colorado's constitution by making it illegal to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. The measure was approved by Colorado voters that November, earning Colorado the nickname of the "Hate State," according to the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum. Amendment 2 was ultimately struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996.
The city is also the headquarters of Focus on the Family, a fundamentalist Protestant organization whose founder James Dobson is known for his stances against gay and trans rights.

The Religion Guy examined aspects of transgender coverage last fall, but this delicate topic continues to pose media quandaries.

We sidestep here the substantive discussion among religious groups, which is well worth attention. All of these issues will show up in coverage of debates inside and among religious groups.

For starters, should journalists apply “nonbinary” pronouns preferred by persons they cover?

The New York Times, long an arbiter of copy desk standards, has experimented with allowing the “mx” identifier. Other proposed neologisms include e.g. thon, hir, ze, zie, zir, xe, xir, xyr, xem, xer, xeir, xis, hirself and zirself. Problem is, even media that want to sidestep old male-female lingo lack substitutes that won’t perplex readers.

The purpose of copy style is to avoid confusion. We see this problem in a paywalled Times item July 5 to conclude the WorldPride celebration, under the hed “’Gay’ - ‘Femme’ - ‘Nonbinary’: How Identity Shaped These 10 New Yorkers.”

One of the spread’s three pages covered a New Yorker born male who now identifies as “nonbinary trans-femme,” but avoids female hormone therapy due to hopes of having children with the female spouse. The Times followed the subject’s insistence on using ambiguous plural pronouns (they, them, their). As a result, head-scratching readers had trouble figuring whether pronouns referred to the individual or the couple.

Given the traditions and structure of the English language, there are no easy solutions here, and copy editors can expect years of debate, agitation and flux.

Th at earlier Guy Memo noted that Facebook recognizes 50-some identities and writers need to know at least key labels beyond the older LGBT as defined by Yale Divinity School: