People have strong and widely divergent opinions about transgender issues, specifically the issue of transgender student athletes competing against others. But it's also fair to say that lawmakers should be able to explain the reasons behind the bills they pass on this issue (on every issue, actually, but we digress).

MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle tore into Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV) Friday morning, as he struggled to offer any evidence to defend why he signed a bill a few days ago that would prohibit transgender girls and women from competing on sports teams, asking him if he could name a single example of a transgender child trying to get an unfair advantage in West Virginia.

“I can’t really tell you one, but I can tell you this, Stephanie, I’m a coach and I coach a girl’s basketball team and I can tell you, we all know — we all know what absolute advantage boys would have playing against girls,” he argued. 

Ruhle did ask a fair question. If the government is going to pass a law banning something, they should be able to explain to their constituents why the law is needed. Justice wouldn't have necessarily had to use an example from his state; logically student athletes are facing similar competitive issues around the country. But he didn't have one example. 

Ruhle didn't really take a position on the issue. She was just asking the governor to articulate his reasons for signing the bill. She also pointed out other pressing issues in West Virginia that might be better priorities. 

Oof. Rough week for the New York Post: one of their reporters, Laura Italiano, publicly resigned after her story about Vice President Kamala Harris' book being given to migrant children at the border was thoroughly debunked. 

 “The Kamala Harris story — an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against — was my breaking point," wrote Italiano. 

The Post responded with a terse statement: "The New York Post does not order reporters to deliberately publish factually inaccurate information. In this case, the story was amended as soon as it came to the editors’ attention that it was inaccurate."

We're unimpressed. Either Italiano is telling the truth, so shame on the Post for ordering a reporter to write an unethical and untrue story, or she isn't, in which case the Post's excuse about the story being "amended as soon as it came to the editor's attention" is a steaming pile of bovine excrement. After-the-fact editing is just being the literary version of a janitor, cleaning up someone else's mess but not actually in charge.

The whole point of editors is to review stories for accuracy, grammatical correctness, etc. before publication. Journalists are imperfect humans, typos and errors happen, but failing to apply editorial standards ahead of time is not a defense.