Ben Bolch’s Los Angeles Times column about LSU is the latest example of how traditional media perpetuates misogynoir

In journalism school we’re taught that we have to be objective in our reporting and writing.

I could go on and on about how objectivity in journalism is a myth created by gatekeepers in traditional media who wanted to regulate each what stories are told and how those stories are told.

The whole point of “objectivity” in journalism was to avoid offending the news’s primary readers, who were and still are white men. Sections dedicated to white women were later added, but at no point were any black people featured, and our stories weren’t considered in traditional media or in the overall debate about objectivity. White men and white women have all the time been the target market and still are.

This signifies that the way stories about Black individuals are told have historically been told from a perspective that pleases the sensibilities of white people.

New media – the media spaces which have emerged since the advent of the Internet – have modified all this.

As more Black publications and media outlets enter the arena and tell our stories in ways in which honor us and uplift our stories, traditional media outlets shouldn’t have the same level of control over what is considered “objective.”

Nowadays, who you might be is directly reflected in the way you write your stories and the stories you select.

Opinion writing is not objective; in actual fact, it’s exactly the opposite. That’s subjective AF.

Opinion writing is a subset of journalism during which journalists, commentators, critics, etc. share their personal thoughts on a subject of their selection.

These topics might be movies, current events, albums, politics, racial justice issues, social justice issues, and the list goes on.

The text in opinion articles is barely looser than in reportage articles. Op-eds often rely more on how the author personally expresses himself. They may use slang or jargon that may not otherwise appear in regular news, and their personality often comes out more in writing because, again, it is an expression of their deep, personal thoughts.

With all this in mind, let’s talk about it Article by Ben Bolch published in the LA Times. before the UCLA-LSU matchup in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.

Ben Bolch is a beat author for the Los Angeles Times covering the University of California, Los Angeles. His Twitter bio (remember we never call it X) says he’s “an absurdist who tweets for me, not you.”

Ben wrote the comment last Friday before Saturday’s matchup between the two teams. The headline of the article was “UCLA-LSU Are America’s Sweethearts vs. Basketball Villains” and truthfully, that ought to have been our first clue that the article can be full of the same kind of anti-black, dehumanizing rhetoric that has been pushed repeatedly over the last yr at LSU.

The original light in the column read: “This isn’t just a basketball game, it’s a reckoning. Choosing sides goes far beyond school loyalty. Do you prefer America’s sweethearts or its dirty debutants? Milk and cookies or Louisiana hot sauce?

Aside from the fact that these first two independent sentences should be separated by a semicolon or a period, what about “white people sometimes gets on my nerves”?

Who calls the University of California, Los Angeles women’s basketball team “America’s Sweethearts”?

No offense to these young ladies, as I’m sure they’re all very lovely human beings, but how do you portray them as the light in this equation while simultaneously portraying LSU – the Black team for the purposes of this exercise – as the darkness?

He then writes: “Do you prefer a team that wants to grow women’s basketball or one that seems very keen to divide it?”

I’ll say it again: where does this narrative come from?

LSU’s squad is dominated by blacks, so portraying them as the “bad” opposition to the “good” UCLA team is greater than a bit disturbing, nevertheless it doesn’t end there.

It makes Angel Reese, who has suffered from a lot scrutiny and criticism from the white media, for doing the same thing that every one basketball players – including Caitlin Clark, who is white – do all the time.

How is it different from what Angel Reese does? Steph Curry’s ‘nightie’ gesture?

The comment in the article was misogynistic, sexist and anti-black towards a bunch of young women who’re still learning, growing and deserve all the grace in the world while attempting to balance the enormity of celebrity sports and college life. They operate in an area where they’re expected to be athletic and dominant of their sport, but additionally to be the epitome of grace and civility, if white people have anything to say about it.

The response to Bolch’s comment was quick and immediate. People on Twitter criticized him repeatedly until the Times finally updated the story on Saturday with several disclaimers, including the following editor’s note:

On the ice, the line “Do you prefer America’s sweethearts or her dirty debutants? Milk and cookies or Louisiana hot sauce? was removed and replaced with a note from a second editor that said: “A previous version of this commentary did not meet Times editorial standards. It has been updated.”

This article probably went through at least a line editor and a copy editor and neither of them initially saw a problem with it, so I question the editorial standards the Times references and wonder whether all of its editors were trained in this alleged ” standard”.

The question “Do you prefer a team that wants to grow women’s basketball or one that clearly wants to divide it?” still remains in the article, as does the previously mentioned comment on Angel Reese.

Now let’s go back to what I said at the beginning of this comment.

Ben Bolch is an experienced columnist who has worked for the Los Angeles Times since 1999. Over the course of 25 years, he has had time to practice and perfect his craft, including his writing style and word choice.

I assume Ben Bolch knew what he was doing when he wrote this article. He is a white man who works in a predominantly white school and knows his audience. This comment was written in a way that appealed to the sensibilities of the audience, but also included words and phrases that he deliberately chose.

Again, the editor saw this story and thought it was okay to publish it.

Ben himself probably thought he had done something big with it because he couldn’t stop promoting it on Twitter, even after being yelled at multiple times on Twitter.

He finally issued a lame “apology” on Monday, but the damage was already done. The apology has already been added at the end of the original article, but I’ll prevent the time and energy of reading by summarizing it this manner:

Ben Bolch is not sorry about the language he used towards the young women on the LSU team. He’s sorry he was called out on it so loudly and openly.

The daring emphasis is mine.

It’s hard for me to persuade him, at his great age and at this stage of his profession, especially in any case the white “woke” bullshit from 2020, that he really didn’t understand the seriousness of what he was writing. He not only sees it now; he knew all along, and when his editors agreed, he figured he had gotten away with it.

It’s the journalistic equivalent of throwing a stone and covering your hand.

You’re not smart, Ben.

What Ben did was follow the path paved by all the white media that got here before him.

It’s okay to place down Black people or talk down Black people. There’s nothing incorrect with portraying us as villains, thugs, and terrible people for doing the same things they do all the time and never get called out for. There is nothing incorrect with using weapons against a complete group of young black women who do nothing greater than play sports and take a look at to advance in the world.

White traditional media perpetuates misogyny. We’ve seen this occur in real time with athletes like Serena Williams AND Coco Gauffamongst others.

Ben Bolch was simply following a script that had already been written for him. He said things about black female athletes that he would never say about white women, and when you don’t think me, have a look at his later comment about UCLA losing. He wrote this story as gently as possible, while criticizing the many mistakes they made that ultimately led to them losing the match.

White traditional media perpetuates misogyny all the time.

They needs to be prepared for Black writers (and Black people generally) to point this out regularly.

Sports

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