Recently I saw that the Washington Post was running a story about drag queens, so I began reading it until I realized it was sheer puffery on behalf of the author and undisguised bigotry against some unnamed religious protestors.
Then I looked up the name of the reporter who’d written this piece and I saw she was the same one who wrote a lyrical ode to a woman who was organizing demonstrations outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavannaugh.
We typically don’t criticize reporters by name here at GetReligion unless the offense is truly bad and there are consistent patterns. We focus on the stilted point of view; the things left unsaid; the side that got ignored. But when the reporter does the same thing over and over again, it’s time to say enough.
I’ve reached that point with Post reporter Ellie Silverman, who covers protests and activism. Both these topics involve conflict; both sides of a conflict have real live people in their midst and these people deserve a hearing, no matter how much the reporter may personally feel about a matter.
Silverman doesn’t appear to get that concept.
We all have covered movements and public events that require us to interview participants with which we disagree. The mark of a professional is be adept enough at covering the matter, neither side knows how you feel about the topic.
This isn’t the case with Silverman’s stories. In her latest, she focuses on drag queens and, obviously, her inability to understand why religious folks have a problem with drag-queen performances for children:
Lily Pastor knew who she was and wanted to celebrate it. So, last month, she joined about 50 other volunteers to turn a Capitol Hill sidewalk into a rainbow-filled dance party outside Crazy Aunt Helen’s, a restaurant that was hosting a story time event with a drag queen.
Anti-trans protesters had gathered across the street and were deriding hormone therapy, a treatment that provided Pastor a way to feel more like herself. But Pastor said standing alongside the people she met — a trans man, a queer teacher, straight allies — was empowering.
