Know Your Propagandist: Mary Margaret Olohan
An anti-trans reporter fails to mention conflicting accounts from offical sources, which cast grave doubts on the accuracy of events as told by her 14-year-old main source.
by Evan Urquhart
Olohan, from twitter
Right wing coverage of Randolph, VT has largely died down after multiple local and regional news outlets provided reporting which cast doubt on the claims of Blake Allen, a cisgender girl who says she’s uncomfortable sharing a locker room with her transgender teammate on the high school girls volleyball team. However, there is one reporter who went forward with a misleading and one sided account, one which neglects to mention key developments found in local reporting on the events. Mary Margaret Olohan is a senior reporter at the Heritage Funded Daily Signal, with credits at the equally far right Daily Caller and Daily Wire, and it is her interviews of Blake Allen and a handful of other cisgender players which falls down on the job. Olohan’s story overlooks major developments, including accounts substantiated by school officials, and therefore fails to inform her readers of the full context of events in Randolph last week.
To understand how Olohan’s reporting on the Randolph story misleads, we must step back and understand what Blake Allen said, and what subsequent reporting now suggests. Allen initially said that an inappropriate comment by the trans girl led to Blake and other players asking her to leave, which the trans girl refused to do. Several outlets included statements by the mother of the trans girl to the effect that her daughter made no inappropriate remarks, and instead was bullied by Blake Allen and other girls, and that the 14-year-old then left the locker room in tears. Regional cable news channel NECN was first to provide some corroboration for this second version of events, with an anonymous account from a cisgender teammate who said, contrary to Allen’s claims, the transgender player did leave when asked. More recently, a report in the Herald of White River Valley (a local weekly newspaper serving Randolph and surrounding towns), has school officials also corroborating the trans girl’s version of events.
This picture of events seemed reasonably conclusive, but Olohan of the Daily Signal doesn’t seem to have realized this local reporting existed when she interviewed Blake Allen and three of her friends. Blake Allen is quoted repeating her version of events and Olohan doesn’t seem to have asked her to square it with conflicting accounts which have been verified by school officials.
In addition to making no attempt to reconcile Allen’s description with that of school officials, Olohan also quotes her sources as if they speak for the entire Randolph team. A player identified as Kayla offers a clear example of this.
However, according to local reporting in the Herald and elsewhere, the team is far from united in opposing the presence of their trans teammate in the locker room. In a community meeting held this past Tuesday, the Herald reports overwhelming support for the transgender girl and her family, who have faced harrassment and threats from extremists egged on by the right wing press Olohan represents. That support includes members of the Randolph high school girls volleyball team, including the team captain, senior Lilly Patton, who reportedly recieved a standing ovation for her remarks supporting her young trans teammate.
Olohan’s article for the Daily Signal mentions the Tuesday meeting, but does not say whether she attended it herself.