Unjournalism

Is simply being gay a political “issue”?

Posted on June 20th, 2006 by Mike Keliher

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Thanks to Romenesko for point out this story about gay journalists taking part in a gay-pride parade.

Apparently the Allentown Morning Call, the newspaper for which these men work, doesn’t like their participation in the parade. Granted, these guys were not just at the parade: They were the grand marshals. Still, the paper’s editor says, “[A]s journalists, they should not take public positions on such issues because public advocacy gives rise to questions about the newspaper’s independence and impartiality.”

Seriously? Is simply being gay an “issue”? Does taking part in the parade mean someone’s taking a public political stand?

If these journalists were the grand marshals of the local St. Patrick’s Day parade, would the editor have given them the same hard time? Even in light of the “26 + 6 = 1″ debate involving Ireland, I don’t think the same hoopla would have happened.

The newspaper’s president added: “We must … never give our readers reason to doubt our credibility.” That’s true. But are gays without credibilty?