NCCJ Brotherhood Citation: one response
What a week! First, Dumbledore is determined to be gay. Then, Jim Neal, a Senatorial candidate, confirms he is gay. Now, today, we publish a story about Bob Page, a recipient of this year's NCCJ Brotherhood Citation award, on the front page. Page is gay and has been out of the closet for years.
I guess sometimes it gets to be too much. One caller, who identified himself as Carl, let us know that he would no longer read the paper. He said, in so many words, that we shouldn't promote the homosexual lifestyle by writing about it without the appropriate condemnation.
When we wrote about Bob Page and his partner adopting a child in 2000 we were showered with cancellations. Not so much with today's story. Maybe times are changing. Then again, maybe we've already lost the readers who might complain along those lines. (We also got some positive comments in 2000.)
Anyway, I suspect that publishing stories like this is a reason some people consider us "liberal." If so, I plead guilty.
Comments (6)
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By the way, we're planning to write Sunday's 10-plus on Senate candidate Jim Neal. Readers have (checks watch) about an hour and fifteen minutes to pass along any questions before I sit down with him at 2 p.m. They can post them here, or send them directly to mbinker@news-record.com
Posted on October 23, 2007 12:48 PM
Guilty!
There it is!
No running from it now!
Posted on October 23, 2007 12:52 PM
When we wrote about Bob Page and his partner adopting a child in 2000 we were showered with cancellations. Not so much with today's story. Maybe times are changing. Then again, maybe we've already lost the readers who might complain along those lines. (We also got some positive comments in 2000.)
As I live and breath times are a changing as I never thought I see the day where JR would admit to anything, its always been a coy evasion of the question, way to go JR. As far as any cancellations, maybe, just maybe, your subscription is at such a low point that it leaves little room for cancellations!
Posted on October 23, 2007 2:06 PM
Beau, don't get too excited. You're wrong on two points: I've never been coy. I've denied a liberal bias in the political way that some people consider it. I still do.
And there is still plenty of room for cancellations. I'm hopeful that people are more tolerant of others and that's why the noise level is so low compared with 2000.
Posted on October 23, 2007 3:36 PM
Your confession is correct: the story displays a liberal bias. On the proposition that gay couples should be allowed to adopt children, liberals will tend to agree, conservatives (at least cultural conservatives) to disagree. (For the record, I think they should; I applaud Bob Page and his partner.) Still, your story (especially its subheading) stigmatizes the latter position as bigotry--and celebrates Page's heroic resistant to it. In other words, it assumes a correct moral answer to the question, should gay couples be allowed to adopt? It also assumes a positive answer to the question, are people who oppose such adoptions cruel bigots? Of course you will not see these as liberal positions, only morally correct ones. (That's how bias works.)
Tom Steadman's original article, incidentally, does an excellent job of eliminating bias.
Although I missed the deadline, the interview advice I would have given would be this: don't make the interview about his sexual orientation. When you asked (I assume you probably peppered him with such questions), he probably said it was irrelevant to his candidacy, and he was right. But your story will, if form holds, put his homosexuality front and center, with subtle reminders of the uphill battle he fights in a state full of homophobic rednecks.
Posted on October 25, 2007 1:04 AM
If you not a liberal, I am a great putter.(not)
Your paper that once had a 100% home delivery in our area, lost all its customers because of your left wing views. Which is fine if you have some balance, your paper has none. I want the whole news, not what you want use to know. Case and point Doug Clark knocks Ann Coulter ay every turn. You never read a word on Pete Stark, Roise,are anyone that spews out nuttie things. So be a liberal, who cares, but be man enough to admit it. Brian, I am anything but redneck, however I do not want my grandchildren to be taught to be a homosexaul, in schools on my tax money. Yes it is done in NC, you just do not read it in liberal papers. If you are gay, its none of my concern.Will I vote for this guy, NO he a Chapel Hill tax and tax and tax JERK.Which insures his endorsment from the Flaming Liberal, NR. No troops died in Iraqi last week. Not News? Must not be in NC papers.
Fair and blanced NO WAY.
Posted on October 25, 2007 8:24 PM