CNN reached out to Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin this week about allegations of abuse in the company’s ranks.
Prigozhin responded in a statement that was largely sarcastic in tone via his press service, calling CNN an “open enemy” before insisting Wagner is an “exemplary military organization that complies with all the necessary laws and rules of modern wars.”
Amazing. I love it when these pundits come with an origin story like Bari Weiss trying to get that professor fired or this guy not getting hired because a black woman got the job.
This is pretty obviously—and yet not obviously enough—a plain old-fashioned newspaper crusade. Month after month, story after story, the Times is pouring its attention and resources into the message that there is something seriously concerning about the way young people who identify as trans are receiving care. Like the premise that the Clintons had to have been guilty of something serious, or that Saddam Hussein must have had a weapons program worth invading Iraq over, the notion that trans youth present a looming problem is demonstrated to the reader by the sheer volume of coverage. If it’s not a problem, why else would it be in the paper?
The whole thing is quotable, but in particular I think it highlights the contrasts between the condescending way the media raises alarms about kids & trans identity, versus how much it refuses to do so (implicitly assuming that kids, doctors, and schools can together make the right decisions for kids) for literally any other issue adolescents face, better than anything else I’ve read:
As someone who took Accutane as a teen, which fucks with your body in lots of ways - good fucking point! He continues:
He also goes in-depth on the outrage (driven heavily by NYT and The Atlantic coverage) about schools not telling parents when kids want to change their pronouns, even though it’s perfectly accepted that schools shouldn’t inform parents if a gay kid is out at school but doesn’t want their parents to know.
