Washington Post’s gay problem

[canis_lupus]

From The Washington Blade:

THE STORY OF a gay Army major who ded in Iraq has presented the Washington Post and other mainstream media outlets with an opportunity to revisit and update their stylebook policies regarding when to identify someone as gay.

As the Blade reported last week, Maj. Alan Rogers, by all accounts a hero for his brave acts while serving in Iraq, was killed in January and buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Rogers lived as openly gay a life as he could, given the military’s discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. He had many gay friends in D.C., patronized gay businesses and even worked as treasurer for the D.C. chapter of American Veterans for Equal Rights, a group working to overturn the military’s gay ban.

But the mainstream media accounts of his death omitted any reference to his sexual orientation. These were not benign omissions. The Washington Post, in particular, worked overtime to excise any mention of Rogers’ sexual orientation. It did not even report his work for AVER. Several of Rogers’ gay friends told the Blade that they were interviewed by a Post reporter at the funeral, but their memories were not included in the paper’s coverage.

Even in death, the military succeeded in keeping Rogers in the closet — until his grieving friends began speaking out. It’s one thing for the military to hide the truth of this hero’s life, but it’s quite another for the media to play along.

http://www.washblade.com/2008/4-4/view/editorial/12345.cfm

[joeybee12]

1. Welcome...I wonder what his parents had to say...if the guy was this

far out, I'm sure they knew, so the Post can't fall back on trying to "respect" the family's privacy.

[MADem]

2. At first, before reading the article, I thought there may have been a

valid thought, a benign and even kindly reason, that went through their heads as to why they did what they did.

The most obvious one, to me, is that they didn't want the homophobic Army fucking with the guy's death benefits.

See, DADT has that little "caveat" in it. You CAN be gay, only you can't "act" on it. In short, you can be gay as a state of being--but no fucking (or any other activities of a sexual nature) allowed!

Now, if the Army decided to do an investigation and found "evidence of fucking" it is conceivable (unlikely, but entirely conceivable) that they could go back to the last point in time at which the person served "honorably" (I put that in quotes for obvious reasons) and posthumously demote him.

However, after reading the article, it suggests that the POST didn't think of THAT, at all. They're just behind the times, and/or gun shy, for some reason.

Who knows, maybe there's a closeted gay person or three (who want to stay that way) in the upper management of the WAPO?

The reporter’s original story included accounts of Rogers’ sexual orientation and the issue triggered a debate among editors who deemed it an “agonizing decision.” But “the decision ultimately was made by Executive Editor Len Downie, who said that there was no proof that Rogers was gay and no clear indication that, if he was, he wanted the information made public.”

And there we have it, at last, an explanation for the antiquated way the Post so often deals with the issue of sexual orientation in its coverage: the top editor doesn’t get it.
It’s incredible that reporting such a basic fact about someone led to an agonizing debate among editors, necessitating Downie’s involvement. How frequently does Downie get in the weeds of stories appearing inside the Metro section? Doesn’t the top editor of the Washington Post have more pressing issues to worry about?

Downie seeks “proof,” yet he removed any mention of Rogers’ gay friends from the story. He worries that Rogers may not have wanted this information made public, but Rogers worked for a gay rights group. Clearly, Rogers was not afraid of people knowing the truth about his life. There was concern that Rogers’ few surviving family members — cousins — didn’t want the Post to report on his being gay. But what gay people know is that many of our family members would prefer we stayed in the closet. That decision should not be left to disapproving relatives. For so many gay and lesbian people, friends become a chosen family. And in Rogers’ case, they should have been trusted to speak on his behalf.

Downie’s decision, and the Post’s stylebook policy, help perpetuate the notion that being gay is something to hide. If Rogers had been straight, there would be no heated debate about making references to relationships or hobbies that implied he was heterosexual. At the very least, Downie could have left intact a reference to AVER, a basic and hardly controversial fact.

THE POST’S STYLEBOOK states, “A person’s sexual orientation should not be mentioned unless relevant to the story … Not everyone espousing gay rights causes is homosexual. When identifying an individual as gay or homosexual, be cautious about invading the privacy of someone who may not wish his or her sexual orientation known.”

The policy is outdated and overly broad. Of course you don’t mention sexual orientation when not relevant, but in an obituary? As the cliché goes, on your deathbed, no one wishes they’d spent more time on the job; they wish for more time with loved ones. Reporting the identities of those loved ones and their relationship to the deceased ought to be mandatory.

[Ms. Toad]

3. Love this:

>>THE POST’S STYLEBOOK states, “A person’s sexual orientation should not be mentioned unless relevant to the story.”

A search for the word "wife" returned 2281 stories. A search for the word "husband" returned 1662 stories. Hmm. Do you think the sexual orientation of the individuals in those stories passed the "relevant to the story" test, or were even subjected to it?

Reminds me of a discussion I had with the vice-principal of my daughter's school when a bi (female) friend of my daughter got in trouble for a shirt which said, "I love my girl boyfriend." This man, who admitted that (1) teachers and administration routinely kept pictures of husbands and wives on their desks and (2) other female students have worn "I love my boyfriend" shirts, couldn't fathom why I found his assertion that no one should be advertising their sexual orientation rather laughable.

I guess sexual orientation is only sexual orientation when it is not heterosexual.