On Being A Journalist With Opinions

Navigating the boundary between non-partisan and neutral in a perilous time

Apologies for the longer-than-usual silence here at the Headquarters of Sighs. A few exciting but unannounced new projects have swept me into their orbit and reduced the time available for newsletter-writing. I have a bunch of meaty topics I want to discuss in upcoming weeks, but today I’m going to set aside all that to talk about the election. Specifically, how I, as a journalist, am navigating this particular moment and how you can help. (Feel free to skip down to the action items below if you’re short on time.)

Writing about my own opinions has always been uncomfortable for me. It’s not that I keep them under wraps in my private life—nobody who knows me would ever consider me a shrinking violet in this department—but I generally prefer my journalism to embody what I would call “thoughtful neutrality.” To me, that means telling the reader which facts are irrefutable and which ones are contested and then offering some different lenses through which those facts can be viewed. If I’m making an argument, I want to engage with the counter-arguments. At no time will I put a thumb on the scale by ignoring or glossing over important information that doesn’t fit the narrative.

That’s what being non-partisan means to me. For readers to trust me, they have to believe that I’m both honest and fair. And as I often tell journalism students: if you want people to trust you, the best thing you can do is be trustworthy.

Journalists aren’t expected to be without opinions or allegiances, but we are expected to keep those allegiances from getting in the way of our reporting and to disclose anything that gives even the appearance of bias or conflict of interest. For this reason, I’ve tried to avoid making public pronouncements about topics I might report on, with the exception of intellectual and press freedoms, where my allegiances should be obvious.

Given all this, it feels pretty uncomfortable to take a public stand on electoral matters. But I’m going to do it anyway, because my literal freedom is at stake.

Let’s take a look at page 5 of Project 2025, which Forbes has called “a blueprint for the next conservative administration—namely a Trump presidency”¹:

Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. (emphases mine)

As most of you probably know, I’ve written a book for young people called The 57 Bus with a transgender main character.

In 2021, it was named to Time Magazine’s list of the 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. That hasn’t stopped those who want to ban it from calling it “pornography,” despite the fact that it doesn’t even contain a passionate kiss. But just acknowledging the existence of trans people is pornography in the minds of some. (Lest you think I’m being hyperbolic, two years ago sheriff’s deputies in New Hanover, North Carolina went so far as to investigate my book and several others and then asked the local district attorney to prosecute the librarians who had it on school library shelves.)

As Maya Angelou once famously said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” The Trump team has told us they want to imprison authors, teachers, journalists, and librarians. I believe them. So do many others who have attracted the former president’s ire. The New York Times wrote this week about the former president’s openly stated plans for revenge against anyone he perceives as a political enemy:

But never before has a presidential nominee — let alone a former president — openly suggested turning the military on American citizens simply because they oppose his candidacy. As he escalates his threats of political retribution, Mr. Trump is offering voters the choice of a very different, and far less democratic, form of American government.

All of us have reason to be afraid. Trump and his cronies want to ban books. They want to ban certain words, including the word “gender.” They want to dismantle a free press. They are at war with the truth. This is bad enough on its own, but history has shown us that the fascist regimes that suppress basic intellectual freedoms move quickly from banning books to banning people.

All of this has made my obligations clear. As a journalist, as a writer, and as an advocate for young people, particularly marginalized young people. As a citizen of a democracy. As a person with trans friends and family members whose life is enriched by countless BIPOC, immigrant, and queer people. While I remain resolutely non-partisan, it’s my obligation to not be neutral when so much is at stake. I have to do everything in my power to keep the nightmare scenario from coming true.

Will you join me?

Action Items For Saving Democracy

Action is the best remedy for anxiety. If you haven’t yet done something to defeat Trump, do one thing. If you have already done one thing, do one thing more. Knock on doors or make calls or write letters. Give money. Talk to the people you know (and listen to them too!) in a heartfelt, non-accusatory way about what’s at stake.

Here are a few things I’m doing in the remaining weeks of the campaign and how you can help.

1. Knocking on doors to talk to voters in battleground states. If you have the ability to do this kind of thing, it is some of the most rewarding work I’ve ever done. You’ll need to be able to travel, walk several miles a day, and have conversations with strangers. You’ll get trained. It’s not nearly as scary as you think it will be—in fact, I generally find it inspiring. Here’s an article about doing door-knocking in Arizona with the organization I work with, Seed The Vote.

2. Can’t do it yourself? Help fund someone who can.

   • $50 covers mileage & gas for a volunteer driving to the canvass site

   • $100 covers gas for a team of canvassers for a week

   • $250 buys a flight for a volunteer coming from the same coast/midwest

   • $600 buys a flight for a volunteer coming from the opposite coast

   • $1000 covers hotel & travel for a canvasser flying out for a week

In a week, one canvasser can knock on 300 doors and have 75 conversations. Seed the Vote volunteers have already knocked over 130,000 doors across 5 states, and had over 30,000 conversations. The goal is 80,000 conversations by election day. For context, the 2020 presidential election was won by 40,000 swing state votes.

3. This Saturday, I’ll be one of four authors participating in a kid-focused fundraiser for the Harris/Walz campaign alongside superstars Kate DiCamillo, Kelly Yang, and Tracey Baptiste. Bring your little ones as we’ll all be reading stories! Register here.

   Saturday, October 19, 2024
   1 p.m.  ET / 10 a.m. PT
   Video conferencing details will be provided to guests 24-48 hours prior to the event.

   

4. Talk to your people, particularly those who might not be voting down ticket. To stop this madness, we need to safeguard not only the White House, but also Congress, statehouses, and school boards. The censors have been active at every level of government, and not just in red states. Help the people you love understand what’s at stake. Here’s a terrific video from Out The Vote particularly focused on young queer folks who may not be feeling enthusiastic about either candidate. As one of the young people in the video says, “Vote for the candidate you would feel safe criticizing.”

I’ll have some dispatches for you from the trenches in the next couple of weeks. And I have upcoming newsletters planned on juicy topics like masculinity, loneliness, shame, and how science and math can fight bigotry. But in the meantime, let’s do this. Let’s save our democracy. Let’s fight for the books, the teachers, the librarians, the journalists, the truth, and most importantly, the kids.

With a sigh,

Dashka

1. While both Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have tried to distance themselves from the document, more than 140 people who have worked for Trump helped craft it, including six of his cabinet secretaries. JD Vance is closely associated with both the Heritage Foundation, which created the document, and Kevin Roberts, who was its lead architect. This year, he wrote the forward to Roberts’ book.