Scott Tibbs
Censorship and shocking dishonesty by USA Today
By Scott Tibbs, June 9, 2021
As a publisher,
USA Today is free to publish or not publish whatever they want. If
USA Today had decided not to publish Chelsea Mitchell's guest editorial about "trans women" competing against biological women because Mitchell allegedly used "hurtful" language, they would be well within their rights to do that. What they actually did was much worse, and completely eviscerates the newspaper's credibility.
Mitchell wrote against allowing "trans women" to compete against biological women, because someone born biologically male has an advantage against women in an athletic competition. That was literally the entire point of her column, so by censoring the word "male"
USA Today is gutting the biological facts cited. And yes, I know there are exceptions to male advantage, but limited exceptions do not invalidate a general truth. We need to stop sacrificing the normal on the altar of the abnormal.
If
USA Today had refused to publish the "hurtful" language in the first place, then that is their choice. Mitchell could have then withdrawn her article from consideration and submitted it somewhere else. Had they apologized after the fact and then decided not to publish that language in the future, again, that is their right. But to change critical parts of the guest column after it had already been published is dishonest and hypocritical. It is a massive breach of trust and journalistic ethics.
As far as the objection to the "hurtful" language: Get over yourself. If you are "hurt" by biological facts, you need to grow a thicker skin. As Ben Shapiro likes to say, facts don't care about your feelings. This is simply an attempt to shut down debate when the facts do not work in your favor, and everyone knows it.
How can we trust anything
USA Today publishes from this point forward? They have shown they are willing to dishonestly edit and change material that has already been published in the print edition after the fact. How can anyone who writes a guest editorial or a letter to the editor trust that their words will not be changed after the fact? Simple: We cannot. This dishonesty and two-faced hypocrisy is utterly shameful.
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