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CBS execs bar the word ‘transgender’ from reports on Nashville shooter:
‘This is not journalism’
By Alexandra Steigrad, NYPost
March 30, 2023 4:33pm Updated
Top executives at CBS News have banned staffers from using the word “transgender” when reporting on the Nashville shooter — despite the fact that police have said Audrey Hale was just that and cited it as a key point in the case, The Post has learned.
“The shooter’s gender identity has not been confirmed by CBS News,” the network’s executives insisted in a Tuesday memo obtained by The Post. “As such, we should avoid any mention of it as it has no known relevance to the crime. Should that change, we can and will revisit.”
The CBS News directive was delivered on a Tuesday morning editorial call by Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, the executive vice president of newsgathering, and Claudia Milne, the senior vice president of standards and practices, according to sources close to the Tiffany Network.
“Right now we advise saying: POLICE IDENTIFIED THE SUSPECT AS A 28-YEAR-OLD AUDREY HALE, WHO [sic] THEY SHOT AND KILLED AT THE SCENE,” the Tuesday memo said. “And move on to focus on other important points of the investigation, community and solutions.
CBS asked employees to avoid identifying shooter Audrey Hale as transgender in its reporting, even though the police provided the information as part of the investigation.
Linkedin/Audrey Hale
Sources said Ciprian-Matthews and Milne spent 15 minutes on the Tuesday call discussing the directive — which bewildered many journalists, given that Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Hale was transgender and that her identity may be relevant to the motive.
“This is absurd because the police identified Hale as transgender,” a CBS insider said. “If the cops didn’t address it, maybe you could avoid it, but withholding information is not journalism.”
The decision has since been reflected in the network’s coverage. Hours after the shooting on Monday morning, correspondent Janet Shamlian reported on “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell” that Hale “identifies as transgender.”
Following CBS’ Tuesday call, however, the mentions of Hale’s gender identity stopped.
Norah O’Donnell’s “CBS Evening News” program stopped mentioning Hale’s transgender identity after CBS News execs made a network-wide decision.
CBS via Getty Images
“We are waiting to see the manifesto [written by Hale] and any details about motive,” a CBS spokeswoman told The Post. “As we say in our guidance, we will then review and revise our reporting.”
The CBS spokeswoman declined to comment further.
The Tuesday call with the CBS News execs left the network’s roughly 150 staffers stunned into awkward silence, according to a source who was on the call.
The source noted that the two CBS News execs appeared to be “twisting themselves in knots” by censoring the reporting over their own “liberal bias,” which is ultimately a “disservice” to the network’s audience.
CBS News execs Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews (above) and Claudia Milne held a call to tell staffers to avoid reporting Hale’s transgender identity.
CBS News
“You need to look at all the facts of the case,” the angry CBS source told The Post. “Everyone should be invested in understanding what happened. I don’t know how you do that without understanding the full scope of the situation.”
Rivals including NBC News, ABC News, CNN and the New York Times have all reported that police said Hale was transgender and used he/him pronouns and the name Aiden.
On NBC News, anchor Lester Holt on Tuesday interviewed Drake, Nashville’s police chief, noting that police had said Hale “identified as trans” and asking, “Do you believe there is a connection to that?”
Drake, who earlier in the day had told reporters that Hale “does identify as transgender,” responded that “we’re still in the initial investigation into all of that and if it actually played a role into this incident.”
CBS News’ Claudia Milne told one employee that the network would evaluate facts about Hale’s identity on a case-by-case basis, a source said.
CBS News
Nevertheless, sources said CBS execs are refusing to report on that aspect of the investigation of the shooting, in which Hale allegedly killed three children and three adults.
“Are we communicating to our readers and viewers that they cannot handle the basic facts of the case?” the source added.
When CBS on Wednesday reported on Twitter’s suspension of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s account over a “vengeance” post, it merely mentioned Hale’s treatment for an “emotional disorder,” citing information that was released a day earlier.
A still image from surveillance video provided by the Metro Nashville Police Department shows mass shooting suspect AUDREY ELIZABETH HALE, 28, a former Covenant School student, carrying out a shooting at Covenant school on March 27, 2023. (Credit Image: © Metro Nashville Police Department via ZUMA Press Wire)
During Tuesday’s call, one employee asked how to navigate the transgender issue during the news-gathering process if reporters interviewed friends and family of Hale and the subject came up.
Milne said each situation would have to be assessed individually, which one insider said sounded like those details would be “eliminated” from the report.
The network may run into scrutiny when more details of Hale’s manifesto, “struggles” and “emotional” issues are released, a second source added.
“You can’t avoid who this person is,” the source said, before turning to Ciprian-Matthews and Milne. “This is not an editorial decision. They made a judgment based on personal feelings.”
They are deliberately protecting the reputation of a transgender from the reality of her life. Transgenderism is a mental illness. That plays a role in this case regardless of what other motives they come up with. Women who transition to men have an astonishing rate of attempted suicide. Suicide is a big part of school massacres.
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I wonder who is pulling the strings of Dutch TV? Not someone interested in the truth!
Hungary's Foreign Minister criticizes Dutch TV for editing hatchet job
BUDAPEST, March 26 - RIA Novosti. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations of Hungary Peter Szijjarto said that the Dutch television channel, to which he gave an interview, cut out episodes in preparation for the broadcast, which dealt with corruption in the European Parliament and support for Hungary's position in the international arena.
The head of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry wrote on Facebook* that a fragment was cut from his interview "for a Dutch public channel", replaced by "sentences like "Hungary is a good friend of Putin" and everything else that we are already used to." Szijjártó also posted on social media a cut excerpt that was about four minutes long.
"It's a fact (that the European Parliament is - ed.) one of the most (corrupt organizations - ed.) in the world, that's for sure. There was systemic corruption based on EP members, their assistants, someone else who is now detained and in who is under investigation. And there was no methodology to avoid this and deal with such a situation," Szijjártó said in a cut episode.
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