Careless, Cruel, and Unaccountable: Reporter Drives Woman to Commit Suicide
This whole story shows how dangerous irresponsible journalists can really be:
That is how Grantland writer Caleb Hannan shared his article about Dr. V, the creator of a new golf putter. To get access to Dr. V, Hannan agreed to “focus on the science and not the scientist.” But during the course of researching and writing the piece, he discovered that Dr. V was a trans woman—a piece of information he found so interesting that he broke his agreement to focus on the science and not the scientist.
Before the article was published, Dr. V took her own life. The article was published nonetheless, complete with misgendering pronouns peppering the latter part of the narrative arc in which the author casts himself as Holmesian detective uncovering a great mystery.
Hannan distances himself from this tragedy by including in the story the report of a previous attempt at taking her own life made by Dr. V, as if to suggest that her suicide was inevitable.
Further, he catalogs her deception about her educational and professional background alongside the revelation that she is trans, in a way that suggests her failure to reflexively disclose that she is trans as part of any introduction to a new person is a lie, just like so many others she told.
When she does not agree to become the focus of his story, which was meant to be about the science, he pouts and tasks her with the responsibility for his aggressive invasiveness: “Dr. V’s initial requests for privacy had seemed reasonable. Now, however, they felt like an attempt to stop me from writing about her or the company she’d founded. But why?” He reports disclosing that Dr. V is a trans woman to one of her investors. He publishes her birth name. He describes the scene of her death. And he concludes the piece by calling it a eulogy.
More: Shakesville: Careless, Cruel, and Unaccountable
As this story has started making the rounds on the internet, you might expect some sense of contrition or that the magnitude of what he has done might have had some impact on the writer.
Apparently not:
Everything you guys have been saying is true: Blocking people feels fantastic.
— Caleb Hannan (@calebhannan) January 17, 2014
And what does his editor have to say about the story?
Incredibly proud of this strange, truly sad piece by @calebhannan and edited by @Rafeboogs http://t.co/RTzqreUN8m
— fierman (@fierman) January 15, 2014
The site the article was published at, Grantland, is owned by ESPN