Receipts: “I could have had the good taste to provide a trigger warning, right?”

As part of my ongoing project cataloguing the mainstream and liberal media’s active ignoring of the the complexity of the gender issue, I’m sharing the following pitch from writer Sarah Barker, which she’d sent to the Minnesota Star Tribune—as well as the story of what happened with it:

“I sent the following to Eric Weiffering, who is I think the editor-in-chief of the Minnesota Star Tribune. He responded positively saying “this could be a story” in about 2 minutes (thus confirming the 100% success rate of my patented email subject line, see below) and I subsequently sent him all kinds of background info and contacts for women in Shakopee, prison officials, orgs that work with female inmates, the whole package. Two months later, the Star Tribune ran a front page story about the improvements the state had made to the men’s prison in Stillwater—barber shop, tattoo parlor, book group. Male inmates were sure living their best life. (Choir, book group, art classes in the women’s prison had shut down because the volunteers who ran them felt unsafe when the state put five violent men in Shakopee). So that’s the postscript to this pitch.”

This Septic Tank Isn’t Going To Drain Itself

Hi Eric—

Fellow journalist here. Though in scale, my experience is nowhere near yours, I did go to j-school, actually went to class, absorbed the basics of the business, and have been putting those lessons into practice every day for creaking decades. I fancy myself pretty good at identifying a story, but have been utterly defeated on this one—batting .nada—to the point that I’m taking it personally. Wonder if you can help me out.

Men in Shakopee women’s prison. Specifically, these guys:

Mother of god, I could have had the good taste to provide a trigger warning, right? But that’s my point. I think I know a story when I see it, and this is a story. As you can see, these men are not women. They’re predatory, manipulative men, convicted of murder, rape, sexual assault of a minor, sexual assault of his own 6-year-old niece. These dudes were moved from a male prison to Shakopee because they experienced Prison Onset Gender Dysphoria. They said the magic words—I identify as a woman—and instantly were given power they could never have dreamed of—over prison administrators, guards, and importantly, the 500 women housed at Shakopee who they are terrorizing every minute of every day. This is state-sanctioned torture of women, a ninth-circle-of-hell violation of women’s rights, and obvious breach of the Geneva Convention that the good people of Minnesota would be horrified by, if they knew about it.

Women who’ve lived through this nightmare have written to the Star Tribune. Women who quit their teaching jobs at Shakopee because they had been threatened by the depraved men there wrote to the Star Tribune. Women still inside, sharing showers with men who openly talk about what they’re going to do to these women, wrote to the Star Tribune. The Star Tribune received press releases about protests that happened in late October and yesterday, Nov 16, at Shakopee. Yet, the Star Tribune has not seen this as worthy of even the most minimal coverage. Am I just dead wrong? Are my journalistic instincts way off? If so, please explain why this is not a story. Otherwise, help me understand how I can frame this story in a way that the Star Tribune will find newsworthy. What’s missing? Appreciate your help.

If you have receipts of your attempts to get liberal and mainstream media to cover this story, and you’d like me to share them, drop me a line.