The following essay is one I wrote for my first ever upper division Criminology class, which was focused on hate crimes.
** The following essay contains graphic descriptions of murder and discussions of anti-Black, transphobic violence. **
In a perfect world, news and media sources would only report current events in an accurate, unbiased manner, allowing readers to formulate their own opinions based on the facts presented. Unfortunately, the reality of news reporting is that bias has become so intrinsic in the dissemination of news that it often goes unnoticed. Throughout recent years, violence against Black, transgender individuals has been on the rise, and news sources have taken wildly different approaches in covering these hate crimes depending upon their political ideologies. Two specific cases exemplify the influence that bias plays in reporting anti-Black and anti-trans hatred: the left-leaning network NBC’s coverage of Maya Young’s murder in 2016 and the notoriously conservative Fox News’ story on the killing of Brayla Stone. Humans’ natural tendency towards confirmation bias in tandem with media polarity can create echo chambers that unnecessarily politicize Black trans lives.
In the afternoon of June 25, 2020, Black, trans woman, Bralya Stone, was murdered at the young age of 17 and left in a car in North Little Rock, Arkansas (Kozuch). The local Fox News station in Little Rock provided news coverage of the case, but the network’s right-leaning bias was evident in the report. The article is titled “Sherwood Police Identify Victim Found Dead Inside Car Thursday,” devoid of indication that the victim was Black or transgender. Moreover, the article refers to the victim using her deadname, “Braylon” (“Sherwood Police Identify…”). Fox News has long been the primary news source for viewers who identify as Republican, and are often older and White (Gramlich). The demographics of Fox’s audience uphold political ideals that are less accepting of or informed about Black and trans identities. To appeal to their conservative audience, Fox News refused to name the victim of the hate crime with her preferred name, and failed to mention her transgender identity. As such, they made the economic decision to omit crucial facts in this tragedy in favor of appeasing their conservative audience. Their readers, then, will not recognize Stone’s murder as a hate crime. This inaccurate account of the crime starkly contrasts similar stories that are covered by liberal news sources.
Unlike Fox News, NBC News tends to have an audience that is consistently left-of-center (Blake). In March 2016, the broadcasting network covered the story of trans woman, Maya Young, and her fatal stabbing in Philadelphia. The network’s coverage of the story respected Maya’s preferred name and pronouns, unafraid to discuss her transgender identity and explaining that “twenty-three trans and gender-nonconforming people were killed in 2015,” acknowledging the issue of transphobic violence at large (NBC10 Staff). The article also goes as far as to include an interview with the director of the city’s Office of LGBT Affairs, who honors the “ever growing list of trans identified people who have lost their lives at far too young an age to violence” (Fizpatrick qtd. by NBC10 Staff). Considering NBC’s generally liberal audience, it is likely that readers of the given story already oppose anti-Black, transphobic violence. Thus, NBC’s coverage of Maya’s case did not jeopardize the attention of their audience by including such discussions, since NBC consumers’ liberal views are supported.
As exemplified by Fox and NBC, conservative and liberal news media tend to take massively different approaches with regards to stories of transphobic and anti-Black hate crimes. With a simple Google search, it becomes evident just how divided coverage on these issues is by party lines. In Maya Young’s case, a majority of sources that appear in search results including her name hail from liberal or leftist news sources. LBGTQ news & politics-focused magazine, The Advocate, was one of many queer news sources to publish an article on the case (Daley). Likewise, Black and trans-led nonprofit organization, Sisters PGH, features a page dedicated to Maya Young (Sisters PGH). The plethora of liberal news sources that tell Maya’s story are joined by very few centrist or right-leaning sources, meaning conservative media consumers were likely unaware of Maya’s murder at all. Because White, conservative media consumers are not often told stories like Maya and Brayla’s (or, at least not accurately), they may not perceive transphobic and racist violence as a real or important issue. The lack of news coverage that both appeals to conservatives and elucidates truthful stories about racism is a harmful form of erasure that diminishes Black and trans stories for a privileged audience.
Using Brayla and Maya’s tragic murders as case studies, the effects of confirmation bias in relation to news consumption become crystal clear. Humans tend to seek out information that supports opinions they already have, “motivated by wishful thinking” (Heshmat). Generally, liberals and conservatives alike have certain preconceptions of anti-Black and anti-trans hate; thus, the consumption of news reports that align with their already-established views on these issues is unproductive. The more that liberal news covers racist and transphobic hate crimes and the less conservative news does, the more attached these issues become to liberal politics. This conflation of political ideology with bigotry and hate politicizes Black, trans death. Hatred is not political, nor are most hate crimes, but biased reporting of them creates space for people to associate allyship with left or right-leaning politics. Without news sources that reliably and respectfully report hate crimes against Black, trans individuals, it becomes easier for conservatives to deny the severity of the threats posed by transphobia and anti-blackness.
Bias is present in nearly all modes of news reporting consumed by Americans today. While this is appropriate with regards to politics and economics, associations between social justice issues and political views have their dangers. As demonstrated by NBC’s story on Maya Young and Fox’s coverage of Brayla Stone’s murder, hate crimes against Black, trans people have repeatedly been polticized and characterized as divisive and polarizing. Instead, tragedies that result in the loss of Black, transgender lives are rooted in anti-Blackness and transphobia, which are not necessarily political concerns. If news sources prioritized the truth over politics, perhaps widespread understanding of how racism and transphobia function in our society would be a more tangible goal.
Works Cited
Blake, Aaron. “Ranking the Media from Liberal to Conservative, Based on Their Audiences.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Nov. 2021, https://www.washington post.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/10/21/lets-rank-the-media-from-liberal-to- conservative-based-on-their-audiences/.
Daley, Elizabeth. “Woman Arrested for Murder of Philadelphia Transgender Woman Maya Young.” ADVOCATE, Advocate.com, 3 Mar. 2016, https://www.advocate.com /crime/2016/3/03/woman-arrested-murder-philadelphia-transgender-woman-maya- young.
Gramlich, John. “5 Facts about Fox News.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 18 Aug. 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/08/five-facts-about-fox- news/.
Heshmat, Shahram. “What Is Confirmation Bias?” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 23 Apr. 2015, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201504/what-is - confirmation-bias.
Kozuch, Elizabeth. “HRC Mourns Brayla Stone, Black Trans Girl Killed in Arkansas.” Human Rights Campaign, 1 July 2020, https://www.hrc.org/news/hrc-mourns-brayla -stone-black-transgender-girl-killed-in-arkansas.
“Maya Young.” Sisters PGH, Sisters PGH, 1 July 2020, https://www.sisterspgh.org /remembering-our-dead2016/2020/7/1/maya-young.
Palmer, Chris. “Woman Arrested in Transgender Stabbing Death.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1 Mar. 2016, https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/20160302_Woman_arrested_in_ transgender_stabb ing_death.html.
“Philadelphia Inquirer.” Media Bias/Fact Check, 17 May 2021, https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/ philadelphia-inquirer/.
Staff, NBC10. “Teen, Woman Face Murder Charges in Transgender Woman's Stabbing Death.” NBC10 Philadelphia, NBC 10 Philadelphia, 3 Mar. 2016, https://www. nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/transgender-woman-murder-maya-young -penn- street/183538/.
“Update: Sherwood Police Identify Victim Found Dead Inside Car Thursday.” KLRT -
FOX16.Com, KLRT - FOX16.Com, 28 June 2020, https://www.fox16.com/news/ local- news/sherwood-police-investigating- homicide-off-of-gap-creek-drive/.
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