Extremists Become Heroes in Right Wing News
Kellie-Jay Keen, who has been repeatedly harassed trans women, is hailed by the right wing outlet, while trans protesters are portrayed as dangerous.
by Evan Urquhart
It is somewhat difficult to be entirely certain about what transpired during a small anti-trans protest which attracted a somewhat larger counter-protest in Manhattan this past Monday. The events have been covered by at least two right wing media outlets (Fox News and the National Review), both of which demonstrate a clear bias towards the anti-trans protesters, and by one progressive news outlet (the Indypendent) which has a more straight-news style but could hold a possible bias towards the trans counter-protesters. As of this writing we were unable to find any mainstream coverage.
This much seems clear: A small number of anti-trans protesters planned to demonstrate in Manhattan. Their protest was supposed to be led by Kellie-Jay Keen, a UK activist best known in the US for harassing Sarah McBride of Human Rights Campaign. Keen herself, however, was not in attendence. She has claimed police declined to escort her through the group of counter protesters.
Several of the counter-protesters were arrested. Right wing media portrays the anti-trans side as blameless, and describes the counter protesters as threatening and violent, while progressive media portrays a group of hired security guards for the anti-trans side as having acted aggressively towards the counter-protesters. The NYPD, in this version of events, may have stepped in and further escalated a situation which had begin to grow unstable.
You’ll notice that we’re using a lot of caveats, That’s because, in the absence of mainstream coverage (for example, there’s nothing in the New York Times, which would be the local paper), it’s difficult to parse fact from suspicion from innuendo. What does seem very obvious, however, is that the right wing media has definitively chosen a side in a relatively small street scuffle between two groups of protesters, and that the side they chose is the one of a woman known for having harassed innocent trans women, both in the US and in her home country.
Right wing press coverage is no substitute for mainstream media. Whatever it’s flaws, mainstream reporters at least attempt to provide an unbiased perspective. While the Indypendent’s coverage seems to our eyes to have worked much harder to be accurate (rather than pushing an agenda as was done by Fox News and the National Review), out of an abundance of caution we’re choosing to treat their story as more likely to be accurate, but not definitive.