The linked page and video actually have nothing to do with LGBTQ issues, except that in the intro to the video segment, they mention “bathroom bill” which is opponent short hand for Transgender nondiscrimination protections, but I encourage you to watch it none the less for a few reasons. And then I want you to consider this premise and tell me if you agree or disagree, and why.

http://beatthepress.org/taxonomy/term/3271

The news media persons are talking about the way news stories get reduced to sound bites and often the real issue gets utterly lost or misrepresented by the media’s desire to reduce a real life story down into a short and catchy phrase. The video illustrates this using a recent “cat leash law” which was nothing of the thing, and the same process applies to many LGBTQ issues, like the way trans rights become a “bathroom bill.” One thing that comes to my mind is a need to build better relationships with the mainstream media such that those reporters and journalists have more reference points and therefore may be less likely to destroy by distilling down an issue to a catchy phrase. A second thing that comes to mind is how/why we need so many more LGBTQ bloggers out there to give voice to the real of the issues and counter the void of information created by catching but misleading phrases.

But two other thoughts occur for me. Note in the video how the one person uses the subject of misrepresented issues as a place from which to say, there are subjects the government should just stay out of. That is pure politics at work. I think his comments suggest that there is another reason why reports may misrepresent, because that is their goal. Connected to this notion is to ask, who is really ultimately responsible for how complex issues get resized into misrepresentative but catchy phrases. Is it the media, or is it the opposition which then uses the media for it’s own goals?

Will building more friends in the media help when it coms to LGBTQ issues? Let me know what you think!