Diane Sawyer on her Bruce Jenner Special: "This is a family love story."

[pnwmom]

And she is right. I hope people who are disparaging the special without having watched it will take the time to see what millions of others did see. A human being who has been struggling, who has taken brave steps, and is being supported by a very loving family.

And Diane Sawyer, as the writer below says, set a "new bar" for reporting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/25/bruce-jenner-diane-sawyer-media_n_7141434.html

Before Diane Sawyer’s blockbuster interview with Bruce Jenner aired on ABC, she told George Stephanopoulos, “This is a family love story.”

Indeed, when the interview ran on Friday night, there was something different about the way 20/20 covered Jenner’s coming out as transgender. There was none of the sensationalism of Piers Morgan’s 2014 interview with trans activist and writer Janet Mock, whom Morgan insisted “was a boy until 18” and “formerly a man.” Mock took exception to the characterization on Twitter, firing back that she was born "a baby" and noting, "As I grew up, I discovered my girlhood, I discovered my womanhood, and I proclaimed and defined myself for myself."

Sawyer did not, as Katie Couric had, fixate on the status of Jenner’s genitals and pose invasive questions about gender reassignment surgery, fueling the culture’s voyeuristic obsession with trans people’s bodies, as if to know someone’s anatomy is to know their soul. Nor did the ABC special go the route of The Daily Mirror, which dedicated an entire article to the topic, saying Jenner “reportedly plans to KEEP his penis at first” (the capitalization is theirs, of course). Instead, 20/20 tweeted that “genitals don’t equal gender” and featured Dr. Johanna Olson after the show to answer viewer questions.

The two-hour special also did not, as is so often the case, equate gender identity with sexual orientation like the New York Daily News’ Don Kaplan, who wrote that Jenner’s “sexuality has become public fodder” and “subject matter this personal should be kept more private.” Instead, 20/20 went out of its way to differentiate gender and sexuality, while also providing links to educational resources.

Furthermore, ABC did not, as Morgan and CNN did, assemble a panel of talking heads to pontificate about the transgender experience without including a single trans person.

SNIP

[hlthe2b]

1. I hadn't intended to watch as I really don't like the whole circus that is the Kardashian promotion

machine. However, circumstances allowed me to see the first hour before sleep deprivation took its toll.

I was very pleasantly surprised at both how Sawyer handled the interview(s) and the deep sincerity that came through with Jenner. A chapter has ended on that young man that held the entire world in awe with his amazing decathlon win--and it is certainly understandable that there would be a sense of loss for that person we all thought we knew. But it is clear that the things that made Bruce Jenner so special will continue to come through with his transformation and I think this will be an incredible journey of education and enlightenment for so many.