Joseph Kahn is an American journalist responsible for the surge of anti-transgender coverage in the New York Times from 2022 onward.
No transgender journalist has appeared on the New York Times masthead since its founding in 1851. In 2023 the San Francisco Chronicle cited a Times employee who said the organization has no trans reporters.
Note: for the trans-supportive filmmaker, see Joseph Kahn.
Background
Joseph F. “Joe” Kahn (born August 19, 1964) is one of three children born to executive Leo Kahn and Dorothy Davidson Kahn. Leo Kahn made a fortune in wholesale and retail food sales, first as founder of Purity Supreme and later as a co-founder of office supply retailer Staples. Dorothy Kahn died in 1975; Leo Kahn then married Emily Perkins Gantt Kahn in 1976.
Kahn was a legacy admission at Harvard University, earning a bachelor’s degree in history in 1987 and a master’s degree in East Asian studies in 1990.
In 1989, the Chinese government ordered Kahn to leave the country for working as a reporter while using a tourist visa. Kahn worked at The Dallas Morning News, then the Wall Street Journal before joining the Times in 1998. Kahn was Beijing bureau chief at the Times from July 2003 until December 2007, during which time Kahn and colleague Jim Yardley won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Kahn then served as Deputy Foreign Editor before serving as Managing Editor from 2016 until 2022. That year Kahn was named Executive Editor.
2023 response to over 1,000 trans-supportive colleagues
On February 15, 2023, over 1,000 New York Times contributors signed an open letter objecting to the Times’ increasingly hostile coverage of transgender issues.
On the same day, GLAAD delivered a second letter and organized a protest in front of Times headquarters.
The next day, Kahn and Opinion Editor Katie Kingsbury warned their colleagues they were violating company policy. Their warning conflates the two letters and dismisses the ethical concerns of their colleagues as “advocacy.”
Colleagues,
Yesterday, the New York Times received a letter delivered by GLAAD, an advocacy group, criticizing coverage in The Times of transgender issues.
It is not unusual for outside groups to critique our coverage or to rally supporters to seek to influence our journalism. In this case, however, members of our staff and contributors to The Times joined the effort. Their protest letter included direct attacks on several of our colleagues, singling them out by name.
Participation in such a campaign is against the letter and spirit of our ethics policy. That policy prohibits our journalists from aligning themselves with advocacy groups and joining protest actions on matters of public policy. We also have a clear policy prohibiting Times journalists from attacking one another’s journalism publicly or signaling their support for such attacks.
Our coverage of transgender issues, including specific pieces singled out for attack, is important, deeply reported, and sensitively written. The journalists who produced those stories nonetheless have endured months of attacks, harassment and threats. The letter also ignores The Timesâ strong commitment to covering all aspects of transgender issues, including the life experience of transgender people and the prejudice and violence against them in our society. A full list of our coverage can be viewed here, and any review shows that the allegations this group is making are demonstrably false.
We realize these are difficult issues that profoundly affect many colleagues personally, including some colleagues who are themselves transgender. We have welcomed and will continue to invite discussion, criticism and robust debate about our coverage. Even when we don’t agree, constructive criticism from colleagues who care, delivered respectfully and through the right channels, strengthens our report.
We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums.
We live in an era when journalists regularly come under fire for doing solid and essential work. We are committed to protecting and supporting them. Their work distinguishes this institution, and makes us proud.
Joe & Katie
During an all-hands meeting, Kahn asked Carolyn Ryan to speak to the newsroom. Via Vanity Fair:
“I want to talk to you briefly about journalistic independence,â Carolyn Ryan said during an all-hands meeting for the New York Times newsroom earlier this month. The Times managing editor, sporting a pinstripe pantsuit, spoke from a stage where she was seated between fellow managing editor Marc Lacey and executive editor Joe Kahn. âWe donât do our work in an effort to please organizations, governments, presidents, activist groups, ideological groups,â she said in a recording of the meeting obtained by Vanity Fair, noting this has been âa bedrock principle of ours for generationsâ that âmany of us feel in our bonesâ but âcan really get obscured in the modern media landscape, which these days has populated with so many more partisan players.â
Ryan praised the paperâs coverage of the Supreme Courtâs Dobbs decision; Astead Herndonâs podcast The Run-Up; Michael Powellâs report on whether the ACLU was losing its way; and Megan Twoheyâs âthoughtful, careful, well-reported story looking at medical treatment for teens who are transitioning and the lack of scientific research around some of the puberty blockers.â She assured the newsroom that theyâll be hearing more about journalistic independence throughout the year. âAnd sometimes that will be an annoying note on deadlines saying, you know, we canât use that language because it reallyâŠreflects an activist-group way of looking at an issue and we donât want to do that,â she said, noting being as âpanoramic as possibleâ is not only âgood journalismâ but âkey to how we think about attracting new, more readers and satisfying a need thatâs really out there.â
âGreat,â said Kahn.
References
Klein, Charlotte (February 27, 2023). Inside the New York Times blowup over transgender coverage. Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/02/new-york-times-trans-coverage-debate
Klein, Charlotte (February 15, 2023). Nearly 200 New York Times contributors are denouncing the paper’s anti-trans coverage. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/02/new-york-times-trans-coverage
Mastrangelo, Dominick (February 16, 2023). NYT editors: Paper ‘will not tolerate’ its journalists protesting coverage of transgender people. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/3862101-nyt-editors-paper-will-not-tolerate-its-journalists-protesting-coverage-of-transgender-people/amp/
Migdon, Brooke (February 15, 2023). NYT contributors blast paper’s coverage of transgender people. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3859501-nyt-contributors-blast-papers-coverage-of-transgender-people/
Reilly, Patrick (February 15, 2023). New York Times accused of âeditorial biasâ in coverage of transgender issues. New York Post https://nypost.com/2023/02/15/new-york-times-blasted-for-editorial-bias-in-transgender-coverage/
Bolies, Corbin (March 7, 2023). The New York Timesâ Trans Coverage Debacle Was Years in the Making. The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-new-york-times-trans-coverage-debacle-was-years-in-the-making
Bolies, Corbin; Cartwright, Lachlan (February 16, 2023). New York Times blasts staffers who condemned paperâs trans coverage. The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-times-blast-staffers-who-condemned-papers-trans-coverage
Eckert, AJ. What the New York Times gets wrong about puberty blockers for transgender youth. Science-Based Medicine https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-new-york-times-gets-wrong-about-puberty-blockers-for-transgender-youth/
USPATH and WPATH respond to NY Times article “They Paused Puberty, But Is There a Cost? published on November 14, 2022 (PDF). https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/Public%20Policies/2022/USPATHWPATH%20Statement%20re%20Nov%2014%202022%20NYT%20Article%20Nov%2022%202022.pdf
Urquhart, Evan (November 17, 2022). The NYT’s big piece on puberty blockers mucked up the most important point about them. Slate https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/puberty-blockers-side-effects-controversy.html
Oladipo, Gloria (February 18, 2023). Nearly 1,000 contributors protest New York Times’ coverage of trans people. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/17/new-york-times-contributors-open-letter-protest-anti-trans-coverage
Yurcaba, Jo (February 16, 2023). N.Y. Times contributors and LGBTQ advocates send open letters criticizing paper’s trans coverage. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/ny-contributors-lgbtq-advocates-send-open-letters-criticizing-papers-t-rcna70800
Paul, Larisha (February 15, 2023). Gabrielle Union, Tommy Dorfman, more accuse NYT of ‘Harmful’ coverage of trans people. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/new-york-times-coverage-of-trans-people-open-letter-1234680299/
Kalish, Lil. These New York Times contributors say the paper’s coverage of gender issues is hurting trans people. BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lilkalish/trans-writers-open-letter-nyt-biased-coverage
Hays, Gabriel (February 15, 2023). Celebs rip into New York Times for ‘irresponsible’ transgender coverage: Demand end to ‘both sides’ focus. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/media/celebs-rip-new-york-times-irresponsible-transgender-coverage-demand-end-both-sides-focus
Dunlap, David W. (June 19, 2017). How The Times gave ‘gay’ its own voice (again). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
Davies, Rachel (February 16, 2023). The NYT knew what it was doing with its ‘Defense of J.K. Rowling’. The Mary Sue. https://www.themarysue.com/the-nyt-knew-what-it-was-doing-with-its-defense-of-j-k-rowling/
Warrington, James (February 16, 2023). How the New York Times was engulfed by a trans culture war. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/15/new-york-times-accused-writers-anti-trans-bigotry/
Martin, Douglas (May 12, 2011). “Leo Kahn, Trailblazer in Big-Box Retailing, Dies at 94”. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/business/13kahn.html
Ember, Sydney (September 16, 2016). “New York Times Reinstates Managing Editor Role and Appoints Joseph Kahn”. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/business/media/new-york-times-reinstates-managing-editor-role-appoints-joseph-kahn.html
Grynbaum, Michael M.; Windolf, Jim (April 19, 2022). Joe Kahn Is Named Next Executive Editor of The New York Times. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/business/media/joe-kahn-dean-baquet-new-york-times.html
Resources
NYT Contributors’ Letter (nytletter.com)