It’s no secret that the mainstream media isn’t especially concerned with challenging stereotypes.

In fact, it’s pretty safe to say we have these fine folks to thank for the widespread prevalence of stereotypes in our society. After all, mainstream news media has become nothing more than a subset of the entertainment industry. They have mastered the art of storytelling – drawing in their subscribers with dramatic tales, complete with heroes, villains and urban mythology.

Out of these tired plot lines emerge the usual archetypes: the Good Guy (often bearing a discernible resemblance to the publication’s main readership) and the Bad Guy (generally a persona to which subscribers cannot closely relate). Were it the other way around, no one would subscribe – who wants to see themselves in the description of a villain?

This, in part, is what makes “the news” so enticing. It provides a look on what ‘all those other freaks’ are doing, allowing you to comfortably sit back, index finger poised, ready to chastise those lowlier than thyself – knowing full well that you won’t have to confront the morality of your own lifestyle, assuming you’re among the publication’s target audience.

Considering this, it’s no wonder the media isn’t often held accountable for accuracy when it comes to its portrayal of the Bad Guy, whether the Bad Guy happens to be a Muslim, a Mexican, a mother-in-law or a vegan. In most mainstream news reports involving vegans or veganism, both the diet and its adherents are painted in the negative (or are misrepresented at best). Why? Because the vast majority of readers are not vegan and are not going to be offended (or even realize) if the vegan lifestyle is misreported or exaggerated.

Over the past several years, there have been a number of reports disseminated by the mainstream media of vegan parents facing charges for the deaths of their young children due to malnutrition. Right away, we see the term “vegan” being used as a modifier to describe the antagonists in these stories – it is clearly implied that the parents’ vegan diet was responsible for the deaths of the infants. With such wording, there is little room for interpretation.

One such article was recently published in The Guardian, detailing a case against a French couple whose 11-month-old daughter was reported to have died from a vitamin deficiency. Yet if you go on to read the article, it states that “they [the parents] had a mistrust of traditional medicine” and tried to treat their daughter’s deficiency with “cabbage poultices, mustard and camphor” and by bathing her in “earth and clay” rather than supplementing her diet with vitamins.

Great. So once again, the world gets the impression that vegan equals cuckoo. Of course The Guardian doesn’t bother to explain that crackpot herbal remedies and severe delusional paranoia have absolutely nothing to do with veganism. They just lump it all together in one big fetid wad of lunacy and deprivation.

Let’s look at another case. This one, reported in The New York Times, involves a couple from Atlanta sentenced to life in prison after their six-week-old son reportedly died from starvation. The headline of this 2007 article couldn’t have been more blunt: “Death by Veganism.”

Again, great. A complete distortion of the facts sprawled across the page in bold lettering. A more appropriate (albeit still misleading) headline would have been “Death by Soymilk and Apple Juice,” since, if you actually read the article, it goes on to say that this infant was fed these two foods almost exclusively.

There is no way anyone could survive solely on soymilk and apple juice, let alone a growing infant. That’s not veganism, that’s stupidity. And now, thanks in part to that NYT article, the two have become synonymous in the minds of the uninitiated.

Interestingly, neither of these reports mentioned the position of the American Dietetic Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics on the issue of feeding infants and toddlers a vegan diet. Their position, taken off the ADA’s website, is as follows:

“Well-planned vegetarian and vegan eating patterns are healthy for infants and toddlers. Time and attention are necessary to make certain young children, vegetarian or not, get all the nutrients they need for normal growth and development.”

So if you put any clout at all in government-sponsored dietary recommendations, there it is. Ignorance, not veganism, killed those kids. Being uninformed about nutrition is dangerous for vegans and non-vegans alike, and it is entirely irresponsible when you’re in charge of the meeting nutritional needs of young children. It’s that simple.

The fact that these news reports referred to the parents’ diets as “vegan” is maddening. They may not have contained any animal products, but they were also void of many healthful vegan foods that comprise an important part of a balanced diet.

Considering the consequences that come with an ignorant population, the media would do well to tone down the sensationalism and superficial reporting (on all issues, not just those related to veganism) and pay careful attention to the language they employ. Only by being mindful of thought patterns and tendencies toward generalizations will society ever break the cyclical reinforcement of cultural stereotypes.

Yes, some vegans are clearly ignorant of their nutritional needs. Some, like the parents involved in these murder trials, are so asinine it can only be described as negligence. But for god’s sake, people, please distinguish between these benighted few and the millions of responsible vegan parents who have raised healthy, conscientious children around the world. Their story simply isn’t scandalous enough to satisfy the condemnatory thirst of the American public and therefore never made it into the mainstream media.