Yomi Wronge Reporting Analysis

At the time it was understandable that you did not know how to speak about Gwen Araujo. It was a fast breaking story and you didn’t have time to check out facts. Since then you have had plenty of opportunities to talk with the relatives and members of the GLBT community. I can only assume that your reporting style now is reflective of your current policy.

We have been monitoring the Mercury News coverage of the Gwen Araujo preliminary hearings. All but a few articles have been written by Yomi Wronge's. Rather than nit-pick over every little detail we looked for trends. Was the reporting accurate and unbiased? Here is what we found.

There have been noticeable improvements in some areas from Wronges earlier reports.  She uses the male pronoun far less often now. She has stopped referring to Gwen as a man trying to deceive the defendants. She consistently uses the phrase “found to have male anatomy” rather than “found to be a man”.  We thank her for these advances, however, her reporting still falls far short of the GLAAD guidelines.

The most frequent infraction is her constant use of quoting anything that supports, linguistically, that Gwen is female. She is careful to always put quotes around the name Gwen (all articles), or when she uses girl (Feb 19) in her articles.  It is correct and accurate reporting to use the pronouns and names when quoting defendants. Ironically even the defendants use the correct pronouns and a feminine name most of the time. Wronge does use female pronouns, but only when she is attacking Gwen (Feb. 19). She used a male pronoun only once. (Jan. 29)

One of the most frustrating problems with her reporting is the incorrect use of the meaning of transgender (Jan 30,31). She explains the meaning of transgender as  “ Araujo was transgender which means the victim self-identity was female”. This is not what transgender means. The Mercury News even ran an article that correctly defined what transgender meant before those articles were written. After all that work that went into the piece on transgender terms I’m sorry to Wronge once again confusing your readership.

The worst article by far was Wronges’ Feb. 19. In it she goes to great length to show how Gwen was not female. Not quoting anyone she makes the statement “She was sassy, brazen and flamboyant, unlike any “girl” they had ever met”. In the same article she goes on to say “ Her nails were masculine thick and unpolished. She had long thick mane of black hair, high check bones, but she hit like a man. Notice the context of the only time Wronge uses female pronouns when referring to Gwen

It should be noted that Wronge did not attend our meeting at the Mercury News or the Gender Matters meeting which was created specifically to help the media learn how to report on the transgender community. It shows in her reporting.

We would like the Mercury News to take two actions. First, adopt and follow the GLAAD guidelines. Second, replace Wronge with someone more knowledgeable about then transgender community.  We feel Dana Hull, from the Fremont Mercury News division, would be a much better choice. She has attended both the afore mentioned meetings and has demonstrated an interest and understanding in transgender issues.