Saturday, March 21, 2015

We Lost A Media Friend When 'Ronan Farrow Daily' Was Cancelled

Was pissed when Ronan Farrow Daily and Joy Reid's The Reid Report shows were cancelled on MSNBC for two reasons.   In addition to the fact I loved Joy's show, I was in talks with the Farrow folks to do a show talking about the off the charts murders of African-American trans women that had spiked at that time.

The other reason I was not happy about the cancellation of the show besides my lost opportunity to talk to a national audience is because when it comes to media outlets, the Ronan Farrow Daily show was the gold standard when it came to respectful and diverse coverage of trans issues.

And they also did something groundbreaking that has only been replicated so far on Melissa Harris-Perry.  They brought trans people on their sets to talk about trans human rights issues.

It was Ronan Farrow Daily that along with Mel Wynore debunked the bathroom predator lies surrounding the Maryland trans rights law last May and forcefully called it a myth. 



It brought Allyson Robinson on to talk about trans military service.  Tiq has been on the show multiple times to discuss the TIME trans tipping point article and the detention of trans immigrants.  

And in the wake of the Leelah Alcorn suicide, Ronan Farrow Daily did a week of trans themed programming coveting a wide variety of issues that earned him a GLAAD Media Award nomination.

It remains to be seen whether we'll get the same level of coverage about issues of importance to our community on other MSNBC shows.  Lord knows we're still waiting for Rachel Maddow to even say the word 'transgender', much less cover our issues in depth on her show.

We lost a media friend and trans human rights ally when Ronan Farrow Daily was cancelled, and it will be interesting to see what MSNBC show picks up that torch and is willing to use its broadcast platform to discuss our issues.
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