today gets us back to what glenn beck was saying in the beginning about uniting using television to unite, not divide. pope francis is putting on his papal media critic hat in a message published on thursday he said the media can help us feel closer to one another, and he called the internet a gift from god. but the pope identified problems too. he wrote, the speed with which information is communicated exceeds our capacity for reflection and judgment. and this does not make for more balanced and proper forms of self-expression. the variety of opinions being aired can be seen as helpful. but it also enables people to barricade themselves behind sources of information which only confirm their own wishes and ideas or political and economic interests. the world of communications can help us either to expand our knowledge or to lose our bearings. the desire for digital connectivity can have the effect of isolating us from our neighbors, from those closest to us. we should not overlook t
are destructive to the environment, they have to be balanced because of all the money they bring into the political equation, you have a difficult road to hoe. and i think that s the road he s trying to hoe and i think that s tough. can i ask you one wonky last question? wonky? since we re both into journalism? i wonder what you think of the media s coverage of climate change. is it the kind of topic where you think they ve failed in general to educate the public? i do. i think it s now finally dawning on people that we re it is an issue because it s now in our backyard. it s not something that s out there or tomorrow. it s here. it s now. and it s happening. it s affecting water. look at the weather patterns. they re so drastic. it s pretty up to be you have to be really the most narrow-minded perp eed person world to still deny climate change. but it s here and it s already showing evidence of destruction. the real question is, is it too late? and because i like to be
readers on monday. we have made one massive mistake. i have thought about it for nearly three solid days and i ve run out of ways to kick myself about it. how did it never occur to any of us? how? how could we have all blown it? that mistake was someone familiar with the transgender community should have read caleb s football draft. this never occurred to us. nobody ever brought it up. simmons also declined to be here today. the controversy had many of us in the newsroom this week asking what ethical questions can those of us in the media take away, if any? here with me now to discuss in no, tiq milan, a senior media strategist of national news at glaad, and in chicago espn.com writer and editor christina kahrl. welcome to you both. thank you. thank you, brian. christina, you wrote an essay for grantland about what went wrong in this case. tell me what you think the difficulties are for the media in writing about transgender men and women. well, some of it is just basically a p
hope you didn t see. it s a twitter message that was published by cnn brk, this network s most popular twitter feed. i thought it was inappropriate and i wonder if you at home agree or not. here s what it said. 14-year-old girl stabbed. her little sister 40 times, police say. the reason why will shock you. the alleged reason is that the girl didn t think her little sister sufficiently appreciated all the things she did for her. this is what s known on the internet as an upworthy style headline. upworthy headlines are emotional, they re to the point, they often persuade to you click with a phrase like this reason why will shock you. or this will blow your mind. but the headline shocked me for all the wrong reasons. i m all for experimentation on social media. you know that. and i m glad cnn s trying new things. but this one went too far, i think. in fact, there was so much backlash i think more people ended up seeing that tweet than are actually watching this show right now. that
and they should. i e-mailed a spokesman to ask if cnn s social media team stands by the message and i was told cnn strives to be tasteful while navigating the social news environment. by the way, here s what i think is probably the bigger problem with all these upworthy style headlines. if everything blows your mind, soon nothing s going to blow your mind. here s another media mistake that involves twitter. the progressive group media matters, which keeps very, very close tabs on fox news, noticed this graphic on wednesday s edition of the conservative talk show the five. it says gop south carolina senator tim scott is the only african-american in the u.s. senate. co-host andrea tarantos compounded the mistake by saying out loud that scott was the only black u.s. senator. now, that s bad. but this made it better. the other black u.s. senator, democrat cory booker, retweeted the fox graphic with a one-word caption whoops. senator booker, that s a good way to make sure fox reme