In a recent article, NYT media and culture columnist David Carr asks: "What if Gawker tried to out an anchor at Fox News and no one cared?" A Gawker article claimed that Fox News anchor Shepard Smith supposedly yelled at a waitress at a bar in the Manhattan...
outing
The Wait for an Active Gay NFL Player
Former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo has backtracked from his claim that up to four gay NFL players were considering coming out on the same day. That has allowed for some interesting Monday morning quarterbacking (sorry, had to say it!). Yahoo! sports...
Outing the NYT Ed Koch Obit
Ed Koch Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York City, has died. He was 88. The only time I ever met him was at a press conference in the late 1980s. I was an undergrad at New York University studying journalism. He was there to answer questions from the student press. I...
Are You Gay?
"Are You Gay?" is the latest NLGJA tip sheet on LGBT coverage. From the introduction: When is it appropriate to ask a subject to disclose his/her sexual orientation for a story? Is it ever? Spring 2012, a New York judge ruled it wasn’t defamatory to call someone gay,...
R.I.P. Whitney Houston
If you're old enough to remember the 1980s, then there is no question that you often heard Whitney Houston's voice emanating from radios worldwide. Only a handful of solo artists in the past few decades could claim to be in her league at the height of her powers. Her...
The Outing Scandal in GOP Land
It has the makings of a fascinating man-bites-dog story. The provocative GOProud group went into attack mode against Rick Perry pollster Tony Fabrizio for not stepping-in to stop an offensive ad. In the process, Fabrizio was allegedly "outed" as a gay man by GOProud...
Is It Unethical NOT to Report That Apple’s CEO is Gay?
Since our last post on how journalists should deal with the sexuality of new Apple CEO Tim Cook, an interesting debate has emerged over the ethics of "outing" Cook. Felix Salmon, a Reuters blogger, kicked things off by saying: Tim Cook is now the most powerful gay man...
Is Apple’s New CEO Gay?
As NLGJA's annual convention begins today in Philadelphia, the national news provides one of the enduring ethical questions when covering LGBT folks: when do we say someone is gay (or lesbian or bisexual or transgender)? From our very first convention where Andrew...
Towleroad Interviews Thomas Roberts
Now that Thomas Roberts is a permanent fixture on MSNBC, it's nice to see he continues to talk to online media like Towleroad as well as larger outlets. Roberts, who hosted NLGJA's New York fundraiser in March, is unafraid of talking about his role as an openly-gay...
Maddow’s Urges Anchors to Come Out, But . . .
A small part of an interview Rachel Maddow did with the Guardian in the UK has created a bit of a furor over who she was talking about when she encouraged LGBT television anchors to come out. Frances Martel at Mediaite has the story. In an interview in today’s...
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