What a difference a day (or 30) makes. When our convention ended on Sunday, Sept. 10, little did we know what issues — unrelated but with an underlying common thread — would seem relevant to our work in the coming months.
It started with a flurry of coverage regarding one of our own. At our convention in Miami, a slate of panelists — including Thomas Roberts of CNN Headline News — tackled that topic during a session called “Off Camera: The Challenges for LGBT TV Anchors.”
After a member blogged a positive report about Roberts’ participation, online news outlets and the broader blogosphere took note, trumpeting “CNN Anchor Comes Out!” and noting that Roberts “came out to the world” and “acknowledged that he is gay.” This probably took many of his co-workers and NLGJA colleagues by surprise. The Web site AfterElton.com subsequently talked with Roberts and reported it “was really only the most recent stage in a seven-year coming out process” for him. Indeed, Roberts said he started coming out in the newsroom in 1999, and earlier this year he represented CNN at our New York Benefit, Headlines & Headliners.
Adding to coverage: On Monday, Sept. 11, CNN announced it would reassign Roberts (and co-anchor Kathleen Kennedy) after deciding to eliminate its 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM newscast. Suddenly, a speculative firestorm inaccurately connected some dots: anchor comes out; therefore, anchor loses job.
As Roberts told AfterElton regarding the panel, “No one advised me against doing it. I have no regrets, but I have some concerns about some of the reporting, certain correlations that are being drawn.”
The experience raises questions on what it means to be officially “out” with a capital O. When is one actually out? Are there degrees of being out? Can individuals be privately but not publicly out, and how do we, as journalists, handle that? Is it fair to even ask about sexual orientation?
A celebrity recently hit the spotlight in a relevant scenario. The Oct. 2 issue of People magazine profiled “American Idol” singer Clay Aiken upon the release of his new CD. His sexual orientation had been the target of speculation for quite some time, and he was asked whether he’s gay. “Aiken doesn’t answer the question directly,” reported the magazine.
“What do you say [to the question]?” he told People. “It doesn’t matter what I say. People are going to believe what they want.”
In a subsequent interview with ABC News, journalist Diane Sawyer noted that, “For three years now, everyone has assumed the right to ask ‘Is Clay Aiken gay?’”
His response: “At some point it just becomes really rude, you know? … I don’t understand why you want to know. I don’t understand why it’s any of your business. I don’t think you’re rude, because I figure, you know, people have a job to do. And, yes, you have a job. I just don’t understand why people care, to be honest with you.”
But a lack of information can lead to conflicting coverage. Take the case of Annie Leibovitz, who recently published a new book, "A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005." In reference to her relationship with the late author Susan Sontag, Newsweek called her “the person she was closest to for that decade and a half.” And in a USA Today two-story package, the main bar said Sontag was Leibovitz’s “very close friend” — quote marks included — while a sidebar review of the book called her “Leibovitz’s longtime partner.”
Then there’s the case of former Congressman Mark Foley of Florida. Among the many questions raised during coverage of the page scandal, some pondered whether mainstream journalists specifically, for the sake of exposing hypocrisy, should have more vigorously addressed his sexual orientation long before the page scandal broke.
As we noted in a commentary on the NLGJA Web site, “Mainstream news organizations could — and should — use the Foley case as a learning experience: When hypocrisy is apparent, don’t avoid engaging subjects about the issue. It’s a journalist’s job.”
There may be no hard-and-fast rules about how to handle each of these situations. But we will again face scenarios in the future. And we need to prepare ourselves to do what we can for the sake of accuracy.
Perhaps the best advice one can offer is this: ask questions, then report. In other words, yes, do your job. When we stop doing that, we can run into greater problems.
