Media top headlines May 28
The media gets admonished for fawning coverage of Biden's ice cream pit stop and more round out today's top media headlines
For the second time this year, USA Today has altered an op-ed after it was published in order to push a liberal narrative.
The latest instance came with a column from former female Connecticut high school track star Chelsea Mitchell opposing transgender females from participating in girls’ sports. The op-ed was published on Saturday but was updated on Wednesday with an editor’s note apologizing for "hurtful language."
The language was was changed to reflect the "USA Today’s standards and style guidelines," the newspaper said.
In her op-ed, Mitchell used the word "male" to describe the biologically male transgender athletes who were participating in girls’ sports. In the updated version, each instance Mitchell used the word "male" now reads as "transgender."
According to Christiana Holcomb, who is legal counsel for a group working with Mitchell, USA Today made the changes unilaterally.
This is the second time this year USA Today has caused controversy by editing an op-ed after publication. In the prior case, it was to the benefit of its author, Democratic activist and failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
After Major League Baseball announced it would pull the All-Star Game from Atlanta in protest of a new Georgia voting law, USA Today made several stealth edits to Abram’s op-ed to water down her support of boycotts.
"The impassioned response to the racist, classist bill that is now the law of Georgia is to boycott in order to achieve change," Abrams originally wrote on March 31. "Events hosted by Major League Baseball, world class soccer, college sports and dozens of Hollywood films hang in the balance. At the same time, activists urge Georgians to swear off of hometown products to express our outrage. Until we hear clear, unequivocal statements that show Georgia-based companies get what’s at stake, I can’t argue with an individual’s choice to opt for their competition."
She continued by saying boycotts cause pain but that Black voters are willing to endure the hardships that come from a boycott.
‘INDEFENSIBLE’ FOR USA TODAY TO ALLOW STACEY ABRAMS TO ‘STEALTH-EDIT’ OP-ED: KURTZ
The revised version, after MLB pulled out of the game, changed her tone considerably.
"The impassioned (and understandable) response to the racist, classist bill that is now the law of Georgia is to boycott in order to achieve change. Events that can bring millions of dollars to struggling families hang in the balance. Major League Baseball pulled both its All-Star Game and its draft from Georgia, which could cost our state nearly $100 million in lost revenue," Abrams' revisions read. "Rather than accept responsibility for their craven actions, Republican leaders blame me and others who have championed voting rights (and actually read the bill)."
The revised copy also added a line that states, "Instead of a boycott, I strongly urge other events and productions to do business in Georgia and speak out against our law and similar proposals in other states."
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At first, these revisions appeared without any editor’s note or notice to readers. It wasn’t made clear until readers criticized USA Today for not notifying them about the changes.
A spokesperson for Gannett, USA Today's parent company, told Fox News, "We regret the oversight in updating the Stacey Abrams column. As soon as we recognized there was no editor’s note, we added it to the page to reflect her changes. We have reviewed our procedures to ensure this does not occur again."
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