Here’s a classic example of the New York Times’ 21st Century upside-down system of structuring news articles to make them more soothing to the prejudices of their paying subscribers. Traditionally, newspapers put the most interesting and important facts as close to the first sentence as possible. But the NYT makes its sizable amount of money less by reporting the news than by reaffirming the worldview of paying subscribers as to who the Bad Guys are (Trump, Trump voters, transphobes, white people in general, etc.) and who the Good Guys are (immigrants, transgenders, nonwhites, etc.).
So, its subscribers really don’t like stories about events such as this one. Hence, the Times structures the article to bore readers into moving on to its latest late-breaking news about the Reflecting Pool or whatever before they can get to the juicy details that might begin to raise Doubts in the minds of their readers about how the world actually works.
Couple Accused of Killing Their Son-in-Law in Bay Area Park
Jonathan McKinsey, an engineer who worked in the games department for The New York Times, was fatally shot Saturday in a San Francisco suburb. The police have accused his parents-in-law, both 76.
By Soumya Karlamangla and Amy Qin
Soumya Karlamangla reported from Alameda County, Calif.
Sept. 28, 2026
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A Bay Area couple have been accused of shooting and killing their son-in-law in a suburban sports park on Saturday afternoon, the local police said.
The man, Jonathan McKinsey, 40, was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds around 3 p.m. in a parking lot at Dublin Sports Grounds, an athletic complex and playground in Dublin, Calif., about 35 miles east of downtown San Francisco, according to Dublin Police Services.
Mr. McKinsey was director of engineering for the games department of The New York Times, according to a company spokesman. Before Mr. McKinsey began working at The Times in 2023, he worked for several tech companies including Splunk, Coursera and Oracle, according to his LinkedIn profile.
By the way, that’s a pretty male-sounding resume that goes back to a computer science B.S. degree at Georgia Tech, an M.S. in comp sci at Berkeley, and a software engineering internship at the planet-exploring Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The authorities arrested Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 76, in the shooting. They are a married couple who live in Dublin and are the parents of Mr. McKinsey’s wife, the police said.
You’ll have to read a lot deeper into the article to discover that McKinsey was not actually a man. She was, apparently, a bearded lady formerly named Dawn S. Finney. But it’s easy for a woman to grow facial hair by taking male hormones. Having your breasts chopped off is more hard core, but that was a step Finney/McKinsey was willing to take.
But you have to read long and hard into the NYT to get a hint of that.
Apparently, … … this was a lesbian relationship until Ms. Finney decided she was Mr. McKinsey. Or something. Don’t ask the NYT to explain.
No motive was described by the police for the shooting, but Mr. McKinsey and his wife had a turbulent marriage and were living separately, records show. Each had filed requests for domestic violence restraining orders against the other last year in Alameda County.
Wow! Lesbians and domestic violence. Whoever heard of such a thing?
Mr. McKinsey had also pleaded not guilty last year to two charges of misdemeanor child abuse.
Ms. Kang has given birth to three children over the last seven years. Whom the genetic father might be other than that it’s obviously not Ms. Finney/McKinsey (or could it be?) is unknown.
Mr. McKinsey was a transgender man and accused his wife, Candice Jang, and his in-laws of abusing him because of his identity, according to his filing for a restraining order in December 2025.
Finally, we are now getting into the fun stuff.
Paywall here.
