Lead paragraph of an AP story:

Quote :

"San Francisco Supervisor London Breed emerged victorious Wednesday to become the city's first African-American woman mayor after narrowly defeating a rival who was seeking to become the first openly gay man in the position."

[Edited on June 14, 2018 at 8:49 AM. Reason : .]

6/14/2018 8:49:14 AM

To me, it seems like a journalist reporting facts, to me. To be identity politics, wouldn’t Breed have needed to run explicitly on a platform of “vote for me so we can have the first black woman as mayor!” She didn’t (the media ran with that). She ran on concrete plans to increase affordable housing, expanding some aspects of the transit system, and addressing some of SF’s homelessness problems. Hopefully that’s why voters elected her too.

6/14/2018 9:10:27 AM

Quote :

"Only one Catholic, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, had ever been the presidential nominee of one of the major parties. Smith’s 1928 campaign was dogged by claims that he would build a tunnel connecting the White House and the Vatican and would amend the Constitution to make Catholicism the nation’s established religion. He was overwhelmingly defeated—even losing much of the then Democratic Solid South."

https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/JFK-and-Religion.aspx

6/14/2018 10:14:01 AM

^^ All you state is correct, I'm more rolling my eyes at the journalist who being an AP story was trying I'd think to make it as neutral dry as possible, chose to lead off the story not by any political issue but by defining the candidates' political alignments based on race, gender, and who they have sex with.

So this race was a win for the Black Party, the Women Party, and the Heterosexual Party. The parties of the whites, Hispanics, Asians, men, dogs, polygamists, homosexuals, bisexuals all have to go back to the drawing board to see what they can do for the next election.

[Edited on June 14, 2018 at 11:34 AM. Reason : .]

6/14/2018 11:32:37 AM

Yea, I’d agree with that. Either out of laziness (because explaining policies is hard) or perhaps the average reader prefers characters over candidates with policy positions, it does seem like the media has this problem. I do think the first black lady mayor is an interesting part of her candidacy, but giving us a rundown of all the candidates skin tone and sexual orientation in the lead off is a bit much.

6/14/2018 11:49:26 AM

Sounds more like a triumphant praise of diversity to me.

6/14/2018 6:50:04 PM