Sebastian White :: Gay Journalists Challenged by Marriage

NEWS

Gay Journalists Challenged by Marriage

The Empty Closet | August 2, 2004
By Sebastian White

NEW YORK—For some in the audience, it was hard to know what to make of CBS News chief White House correspondent John Roberts’s comment last month that “everybody’s a little bit homosexual.” But after the initial jaw-dropping surprise of his nonchalant response to a hypothetical question—would being gay adversely affect his career—tentative laughter slowly erupted from the nearly 700 professionals in attendance at the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association’s (NLGJA) yearly convention in New York.

Roberts highlighted a star-studded lineup of newspaper, television and online journalists, as well as a bevy of politicians and entertainers on hand for the three-day meeting. The event was punctuated by heated debate on some of the hottest topics in the news today, inevitably centering on the deeply intertwined issues of Massachusetts gay marriages and President George W. Bush’s all-but-dead constitutional amendment that would limit marriage to heterosexual couples.

NLGJA bills itself as an organization of journalists working from within the media industry to foster fair and accurate coverage of gay and lesbian issues, and that works to promote diversity of all kinds in the newsroom. But this year, with the same-sex marriage debate awkwardly positioned at the intersection of the personal and the political, members’ journalistic responsibility to be balanced and objective is being called into question.

On one extreme stand a small number of ultra-conservatives who have been left wondering if NLGJA is essentially an activist organization whose members affect the news on which they’re reporting. Cliff Kincaid, who writes for American Daily, a far right-leaning editorial Web site, and who is a staunch critic of NLGJA, wrote in the days after the convention that, “gay ‘journalists’ are gay first and journalists second, if at all. Journalists who are not homosexual have to realize that support for the homosexual agenda is now expected of them.”

But Eric Hegedus, NLGJA’s newly inaugurated president told the confab, “we’re not changing journalism, we’re just making it better.” The convention’s focus, he explained, was ultimately to help all journalists increase their fairness in the coverage of gay issues, not to spin reporting in one direction or another.

Unlike groups such as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which largely affects change by mounting public information campaigns against news reporting or media outlets perceived to be anti-gay, NLGJA works at the newsroom level, helping to educate and foster fair coverage, journalist to journalist.

How is the marriage debate affecting journalism and changing America?

NBC News correspondent Pete Williams was on hand to moderate a panel on same-sex marriage to answer these and other questions, a forum that brought in activists from the front lines of the debate to face a firing line of queries from journalists covering the issue.

Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, the gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide, was among those participating in that panel. The influential figure in today’s battle over marriage for same-sex couples said he objects to President Bush’s assertion that the “protection” of marriage is, as an extension, also about the protection of America’s core values. Wolfson argued that his organization’s efforts to promote equality are probably more aligned with American values than the actions of those in favor of amending the Constitution. “We stand in this struggle for our country and what this country stands for,” he said.

Later, when the discourse shifted from the political to the personal, Williams himself faced some tough questions about gay journalists covering gay issues, a hot issue thrust into the spotlight after two women, both San Francisco Chronicle staff members, were reassigned from the breaking marriage story they were covering after it was discovered they themselves had gotten married.

What responsibilities do journalists have to their audience in these circumstances when participating in a civil right afforded most Americans can be perceived as participating in an act of political activism that could influence their objectivity? Parallels were drawn to participant-reporters in immigration, voter, and women’s rights debates, but no consensus was established in how to handle these sticky, catch-22 situations.

Still, the audience was unrelenting. One journalist took the openly-gay Williams to task, asking if he ever plans to marry his long-term partner should the opportunity present itself. More difficult questions ensued: if he did, in fact, get married, would he tell his viewers or the higher-ups at NBC? Would he feel a need to avoid reporting on gay marriage altogether?

It didn’t take long for Williams to spout his unequivocal answer: “No, no, and no.”

Sebastian White is NLGJA's New England chapter secretary.