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 writer Jason Cole has written an excellent article on this topic.

“Media must be delicate in handling of active NFL gay player coming out publicly” is the title of his article:

Former Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita, who along with Ayanbadejo supports marriage equality and gay causes, got a phone call from one news outlet. The reporter wanted to know Fujita’s opinion about what Ayanbadejo was saying. The conversation quickly turned to the reporter’s real objective.

Do you know who those four players could be?

“I figured out what they were really wanting pretty quickly,” Fujita said with equal amounts of sarcasm and disappointment.

This is where the chase gets dangerous. Even though Ayanbadejo later backed off his claim, it was only after reporters who work with Bob Costas, CNN, ESPN and numerous other outlets had chased the tidbit. [Cyd] Zeigler [of Outsports.com] eventually weighed in on the subject, casting doubt that there were ever four NFL players planning to come out and throwing a wet blanket on CBSSports.com writer Mike Freeman’s assertion that an NFL player is “close” to coming out.

“Just wait for the headline that someone has come out; anything else is just a guess,” said Zeigler, who admitted Friday that he’s only reasonably sure of two gay NFL players.

Worse, Zeigler said, there is almost a witch-hunt element to what is going on. It’s not necessarily intentional, but it’s there nonetheless.

“I just hope that it doesn’t get to the point that somebody feels pressured to come out because they feel that this news organization is about to out them,” said Zeigler, who is 39 and came out when he was 23. “You don’t want people to feel pressured into this.”

It’s anyone’s guess when the media will finally have to deal with this for real, but I do wonder what role, if any, LGBT journalists and LGBT media will play.

AP Pronouncement on ‘Husband’ and ‘Wife’

The Associated Press (AP) style is still what many of us media types use as a benchmark for standards. More importantly to me, however, is what I believe is the high regard the public has for AP style (at least among those who are aware of such a thing as “AP style”).

So it’s no small thing when AP makes a change (such as it’s recent “homophobia” decision) or weighs in on a new situation that needs weighing in on.

Which leads me to this brief but consequential recent memo from AP standards that Jim Romenesko posted:

From: AP Standards
Sent: Mon 2/11/2013 2:45 PM

STYLE WATCH

SAME-SEX COUPLES: We were asked how to report about same-sex couples who call themselves “husband” and “wife.” Our view is that such terms may be used in AP stories with attribution. Generally AP uses couples or partners to describe people in civil unions or same-sex marriages.

Tom Kent
Dave Minthorn

What’s with the “scare quotes”? I can see the distinction from an AP viewpoint when, for example, a man in a domestic partnership or civil union calls the other man in that legally recognized relationship “husband” that technically that person is not his husband, because “husband” is reserved for marriage.

But when two men in a legally recognized marriage call themselves husbands, it makes no sense to me that AP should make a distinction because that marriage is not yet federally recognized.

I don’t know for sure, but I would be surprised if AP made such a distinction back in the days before Loving v. Virginia made interracial marriages legal nationwide.

UPDATE 1: AP sent Romenesko the following updated version of the memo above:

SAME-SEX COUPLES: We were asked how to report about same-sex couples who call themselves “husband” and “wife.” Our view is that such terms may be used in AP content if those involved have regularly used those terms (“Smith is survived by his husband, John Jones”) or in quotes attributed to them. Generally AP uses couples or partners to describe people in civil unions or same-sex marriages.

UPDATE 2: AP has changed its stylebook:

The following entry was added today to the AP Stylebook Online and also will appear in the new print edition and Stylebook Mobile, published in the spring:

husband, wife Regardless of sexual orientation, husband or wife is acceptable in all references to individuals in any legally recognized marriage. Spouse or partner may be used if requested.

“The AP has never had a Stylebook entry on the question of the usage of husband and wife,” said AP Senior Managing Editor for U.S. News Mike Oreskes. “All the previous conversation was in the absence of such a formal entry. This lays down clear and simple usage. After reviewing existing practice, we are formalizing ‘husband, wife’ as an entry.”

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 never got to ask a question, but I did hear a question that I had never before heard asked of a politician and certainly never heard answered: “Are you gay?” was the question. The answer: “No, next question.”

Although Koch said those words with a smirk on his face, his tone was noncombative. He looked at no one in particular as he answered, pointing randomly to the crowd to get a quick question that would change the subject.

What strikes me the most about that moment is that his answer in public never changed. Despite his support for LGBT rights, activists have pointed to his closeted life as one of the reasons he didn’t do enough for AIDS. Perhaps Koch was a ninja expert at keeping his heterosexuality in the closet, but I would argue the testimony of countless credible sources that he was gay is overwhelming.

While this is all old news to me, I was struck today by a straight colleague who said casually that he had never even heard of the Koch-is-gay stuff until now. Just goes to show how some issues are more relevant to some of us than others. And there’s nothing unusual about that.

That phenomenon explains why many folks, even former adversaries of Koch, praised his accomplishments in the wake of his death while others were disturbed by a seemingly deliberate omission of discussion about his inaction in the early days of the AIDS pandemic.

It’s not my style to dance on graves. I don’t want my loved ones to be hurt by any dancing on my grave, so on this matter I remain a Golden Rule adherent. That said, I do not consider discussing Koch’s inaction on AIDS in and of itself as dancing on his grave.

He was a public figure. As such, scrutiny of his public record isn’t personal, it’s a matter of public concern. And journalists especially shouldn’t shy away from telling the facts of the lives of public people, especially in their obituaries.

The New York Times obituary of Koch originally did just that. The Huffington Post reports that the word “AIDS” was mentioned only once in the first version of the NYT obit, which was 5,500 words long, in a reference to “the scandals and the scourges of crack cocaine, homelessness and AIDS.”

A few hours later three paragraphs about his handling of AIDS were added, but the NYT wrote that “hundreds of New Yorkers were desperately ill or dying” in the 1980s when in fact it was tens of thousands. Even in its attempts at correcting the record, the NYT fell short. As of this writing, that incorrect fact has not been updated.

Some activists go as far as to accuse Koch of murder because of his inaction on AIDS, but that is too far for me. Discussing his inaction on AIDS, however, shouldn’t be too far for anyone.

Dish Independence

“Present and Future Business Models for Monetizing the Newspaper Industry” is a jingle from NPR’s On the Media that trumpets a recurring theme on the show (and a theme for anyone interested in making a living in the media). Well, that’s the jingle I heard in my head when I came across the following.

Openly HIV-positive and gay blogger extraordinaire Andrew Sullivan announced on January 2 that starting February 1 his blog The Dish will become ad-free and start charging for access to some of its content:

And so, as we contemplated the end of our contract with the Beast at the end of 2012, we faced a decision. As usual, we sought your input and the blogosphere’s – hence the not-terribly subtle thread that explored whether online readers will ever pay for content, and how. The answer is: no one really knows. But as we debated and discussed that unknowable future, we felt more and more that getting readers to pay a small amount for content was the only truly solid future for online journalism. And since the Dish has, from its beginnings, attempted to pioneer exactly such a solid future for web journalism, we also felt we almost had a duty to try and see if we could help break some new ground.

The only completely clear and transparent way to do this, we concluded, was to become totally independent of other media entities and rely entirely on you for our salaries, health insurance, and legal, technological and accounting expenses.

The URL will revert to andrewsullivan.com. Founding members are asked to pay $19.99 for one year, but Sullivan encourages folks to give more if they feel like it:

No member will have any more access or benefits than any other member, but if hardcore Dishheads want to give us some love for the years of free blogging and for the adventure ahead, we’d be crazy not to take it.

And here are some of the details on how it will actually work:

Our particular version will be a meter that will be counted every time you hit a “Read on” button to expand or contract a lengthy post. You’ll have a limited number of free read-ons a month, before we hit you up for $19.99. Everything else on the Dish will remain free. No link from another blog to us will ever be counted for the meter – so no blogger or writer need ever worry that a link to us will push their readers into a paywall. It won’t. Ever. There is no paywall. Just a freemium-based meter.

Sullivan doesn’t rule out advertising in the future if subscription revenue isn’t enough. “But it would be a great missed opportunity, in my view, not to try,” Sullivan says.

Full disclosure: I visit The Dish regularly and I wanted to support this experiment, so I paid the minimum. In just a few hours after his initial post, Sullivan reports that a third of his readers have subscribed giving more than the $19.99 minimum.

Sullivan cites mixed reactions to his announcement across the blogosphere. Obviously, I support the concept.

The Dish is in a unique position because of its loyal and large following, but this model does seem to have potential for even one-person blogs. Micropayments work, so why shouldn’t bloggers try?

Fear of Homophobia

The recent decision by The Associated Press (AP) to discourage the use of the terms “homophobia” and “Islamaphobia” has prompted much discussion.

NLGJA president Michael Triplett emailed the following to Andrew Beaujon at Poynter:

The general sense is that the AP is probably correct in terms of the literalism of the word “homophobia” and that it really is not the best way to describe anti-gay actions or motives. On the other hand, it leaves writers without a term — like racism or sexism — that describes anti-gay sentiment. At this point, I am not sure whether NLGJA will change its stylebook or not given the AP’s recent pronouncement.

Poynter also got the following from David Minthorn, the AP deputy standards editor:

We feel that ‘homophobia’ and ‘Islamophobia’ have two shortcomings: they are not specific, and can also imply a psychiatric condition. We always owe it to readers to say exactly what we mean. Instead of terms that try to describe some general state of mind, we always prefer to say what a person’s position is or how he acts. Does a given person or group assert that gays are immoral? Do they oppose gay marriage? Do they oppose gays in the military? Do they commonly make anti-gay slurs? Does Jones question whether Islam is a religion? Does he say Islam should not be the basis of a country’s law? Does he engage in anti-Muslim violence? Such specifics tell a reader the points that are at issue and allow for a response to those points. As a result, the reader obtains more accurate information.

Of the reactions Poynter cites, this one from John E. McIntyre at the Baltimore Sun sums up the backlash:

If the editors of the AP Stylebook wish to discourage the use of certain words simply because they can be misused or misunderstood, there ought to be a great many in line ahead of homophobia.

I thought that was that until I came across an op-ed at Gay City News by Dr. George Weinberg, a psychotherapist and author of the 1972 book Society and the Healthy Homosexual, which coined the phrase homophobia.

Here’s an excerpt:

The AP’s recent dislike of the word because it is “political” makes no sense. It is political because a large number of people have brought it to light and are opposing abuse. If one man beats up his wife nightly because he’s a drunk, it isn’t political. It is personal. If a million do and women organize in protest, it’s political. But it is still personal and psychological. “Political” just means that many people are trying to do something about it. Homophobia doesn’t lose its status as a phobia just because many people are now on to it and are trying to cure it or to live in spite of it. A phobia is an irrational dread of something harmless, motivating the desire to avoid it or expunge it.

The world needs the word “homophobia” and what it says. People need to understand what it teaches … As for the argument that it is imprecise, so is a word like “freelance” writer; people don’t go around throwing lances any more. And, by the AP’s logic, why not get rid of the word “gay” since not all gay people are joyous.  It’s a big mistake to pretend precision here.

It was a great advance to have the term “hate crimes” brought into the language and into the law. The term underscores the psychological motive of the person who commits such crimes — for instance, violent acts accompanied by anti-semetic language or the defacing of temples. By the AP’s logic, that term should be the first to go. It clearly refers to the mental and emotional state of those who commit hate crimes. Victims of hate crimes wouldn’t tolerate the erasure of the word. I can guess why the term “hate crimes” isn’t being eliminated along with “homophobia.” AP wants its language to go over well everywhere its stories might be picked up. The term “hate crimes” wouldn’t stop the media from picking up AP stories, while the word “homophobia” might draw objection in some places. In short, AP’s decision, far from depoliticizing its reporting, is itself likely based on a political judgment.

No surprise the coiner of the phrase still supports it, but his arguments shouldn’t be dismissed because he coined it. Homophobia may not be as precise as the AP wants it to be, but I can’t imagine not using it until an adequate replacement exists. And I don’t think “anti-gayism” is going to catch on any time soon.