Fred Martinez's Monitor

Gay Agenda: Why Media is Bias and "Hates" McCain/Palin

-NBC to ‘Gay’ Journalists: ‘Your Victories Are Our Victories’
[http://sunlituplands.blogspot.com/2008/09/nbc-to-gay-journalists-your-victories.html]

-NBC/National Journal reporter Matthew Berger said he ... acknowledged how difficult it is for a journalist to do his job when you “hate” the people you’re covering.
[http://sunlituplands.blogspot.com/2008/09/nbc-to-gay-journalists-your-victories.html]

-At the welcoming reception, a man sported a T-shirt with "NAMBLA" boldly emblazoned on the front. NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, advocates pedophilia. [http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brian-fitzpatrick/2008/08/28/big-media-endorses-homosexual-activist-agenda]

http://sunlituplands.blogspot.com/2008/09/nbc-to-gay-journalists-your-victories.html

NBC to ‘Gay’ Journalists: ‘Your Victories Are Our Victories’


From The Culture and Media Institute
By Brian Fitzpatrick


It’s spelled NLGJA, but they pronounce it “Negligee."

The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) just held its annual convention here in Washington D.C., attracting hundreds of journalists – and ringing endorsements – from virtually every major publication and broadcaster in the news media.

In a full-page ad in the convention program, NBC Universal declared it is “proud to support NLGJA,” under the bold headline: “YOUR VICTORIES ARE OUR VICTORIES"

After listening to speaker after speaker express hatred and contempt for political and religious conservatives while plotting how to advance the homosexual activist agenda through journalism, I’m left wondering whether Americans know the extent of the media’s bias on homosexual issues. Do they know that the news media have thrown themselves fully behind the gay rights movement? Every major news organization sponsored the convention, bought space in the program or had recruiting booths.

Hatred

NBC/National Journal reporter Matthew Berger said he experienced “reverse Stockholm syndrome” while on the campaign trail covering GOP religious conservative Mike Huckabee. “Stockholm syndrome” is what afflicts hostages who come to love their captors. If Berger’s feelings changed after traveling with the Huckabee campaign, they went in the opposite direction. He acknowledged how difficult it is for a journalist to do his job when you “hate” the people you’re covering. Berger said he was happy when he was transferred to the “gay-friendly” Rudolph Giuliani campaign.

Sending an outspoken activist like Berger, the former president of NLGJA’s Washington D.C. chapter, to cover the Huckabee campaign is like sending a hard-right activist to cover the Obama campaign. What was NBC thinking? Maybe they had no choice. Does NBC have anybody on staff who doesn’t hate religious conservatives?

Kerry Eleveld, news editor for a homosexual-themed magazine appropriately named The Advocate, described as “refreshing” Pastor Rick Warren’s questions to the presidential candidates at the Saddleback Church forum on August 16. However, she also got big laughs when she said she understood how others might find the pastor’s participation in the political process “nauseating.”

Discussing attitudes toward homosexuality, Los Angeles Times opinion pages editor Robin Rauzi revealed Big Media contempt for the rubes in Flyover Country: “We feel our readers are ahead of where they are in Kansas City.”

Political Activism

During a sparsely attended (11 out of hundreds of conferees) session promoting objectivity in news coverage, a reporter from a Florida newspaper acknowledged his biases: the “public’s right to know,” and “equality.” By “equality,” he meant the homosexual activist political agenda. He revealed the tension that ought to have bedeviled every journalist at the conference: how to avoid ideological bias while covering the news.

On a partisan level, the conferees clearly leaned toward the Democrats. One speaker frankly admitted that the homosexual activist community generally expects most gays to be Democrats. Two panels touched on a partisan controversy raging in the homosexual community: James Kirchick, Assistant Editor of The New Republic, said gays are “shocked” and “up in arms” because the owner of “Manhunt,” a very popular same-sex “dating” site, contributes money to presumptive GOP presidential candidate John McCain.

Even Patrick Sammon, president of the organization for homosexuals in the GOP, the Log Cabin Republicans, stressed that his organization does not support social conservatives. Sammon called former Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Rick Santorum a “bigot.” Another journalist observed that “some people” in D.C. make it their business to “out” homosexual staffers of GOP congressmen with an “anti-gay agenda.”

A panel supposedly intended to foster accurate coverage of religion quickly turned into a political strategizing session aimed at “retaking Christianity” from conservatives. The moderator and organizer of the panel, furniture magnate Mitchell Gold, is the founder of Faith in America, a homosexual activist organization targeting the religious community.

Gold said, “The single biggest [obstacle] to gays having equal rights in the country is religion,” so “I set myself to learn about it.” One of the panelists, Ann Craig, director of Religion, Faith & Values for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), said, “We’re not getting anyplace until we begin conquering the debate” in the religious community.

How to do it? Panelist Jimmy Creech, the former United Methodist pastor defrocked in 1999 for conducting same-sex “marriages,” told the journalists to seek out “other voices” rather than quote the 700 Club’s Pat Robertson and Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson. According to Creech, conservative Christian leaders like Robertson and Dobson are “the most radical Christians in America today,” and represent “a very minority point of view.”

The sole journalist on the panel was David Waters, editor of the Washington Post/Newsweek “On Faith” blog. Waters urged reporters “not to go” to established leaders like Robertson and Dobson, contrasting them to “real people” in the pews.

Sponsorship

Who paid for this blend of journalism and activism? The NLGJA convention was underwritten by most of the biggest names in the news business. At the $25,000 level: the McClatchy Company. At the $15,000 level: CBS, CNN, Gannett Foundation, ESPN, and Hearst Newspapers. Kicking in $10,000 were NBC, Fox Business, Fox News, News Corporation, and The Washington Post. Good for $5,000 were ABC News and Bloomberg. Publisher and broadcaster Cox Enterprises bought the inside cover of the program, and CBS News “salutes NLGJA” on the back cover. Gannett (USA Today) “salutes” NLGJA in a full-page ad, as does The New York Times in a half-page ad. A.H. Belo Corporation (Dallas Morning News, Providence Journal) declares it is a “proud sponsor” in a full-page ad, while The Washington Post “congratulates” NLGJA in its full-page ad.

Recruiting

NLGJA members generally view themselves as members of an oppressed minority group, which suggests they’re likely to bring a political agenda to their journalism. The NLGJA convention doesn’t seem to be a likely place to find objective reporters. Nevertheless, most of the top organizations in journalism sent recruiters: The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, AP, NPR, Bloomberg, even conservative-leaning Fox. The poor Fox recruiter seemed lonely.

The political and ideological bias so readily apparent at the NLGJA convention reflects a glaring problem in the news industry as a whole. Reporting the news objectively is still a matter of professional pride to most journalists, but many also have bigger fish to fry.


Brian Fitzpatrick is senior editor at the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the Media Research Center.




http://apcheck.blogspot.com/2008/10/ap-reports-anti-gay-marriage-effort.html

AP Reports Anti-Gay Marriage Effort, Ingores School Indoctrination

The Associated Press reported on the Mormon church's effort to pass a bill that would make gay marriage illegal, again, until the corrupt state court overturns it, again.

But AP won't report on 18 first-graders who were forced to see their teacher in a lesbian wedding. I guess a church handing out pamphlets is shocking news but forcing indoctrination on children at school isn't.

-At the welcoming reception, a man sported a T-shirt with "NAMBLA" boldly emblazoned on the front. NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, advocates pedophilia. [http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brian-fitzpatrick/2008/08/28/big-media-endorses-homosexual-activist-agenda]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brian-fitzpatrick/2008/08/28/big-media-endorses-homosexual-activist-agenda

Elite Media Give Big Bucks to Gay Journalist Group
By Brian Fitzpatrick
August 28, 2008 - 12:19 ET

Rarely do the media put their institutional political bias on public display, but this past weekend, America's news industry titans left no doubt that they're fully behind one of the nation's most radical cultural and political movements.

ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the corporate owners of USA Today, the Miami Herald, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Sacramento Bee, The Dallas Morning News and many other newspapers, all spent thousands of dollars sponsoring the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association convention in Washington, D.C. Many journalists from these Big Media mainstays attended or spoke at the convention.

In the name of "diversity," all the organizations listed above ran recruiting booths, as did NPR. Thus, the nation's major news providers demonstrated that they have bought into the central proposition of homosexual activists: that people engaging in homosexuality or bisexuality, along with transsexuals, are a historically oppressed minority group deserving the same preferential treatment and legal protections that society provides to ethnic minorities and women.

Story Continues Below Ad ↓

If Big Media views homosexuality primarily as a civil rights issue rather than as a moral and health issue, their coverage of all homosexual-related stories from HIV/AIDS to same-sex "marriage" must be viewed skeptically. How can they cover homosexual-related issues fairly if they define opponents of the activist political agenda as enemies of equal rights - in short, as bigots?

Also, by deliberately recruiting NLGJA members, the news media have demonstrated their willingness to hire journalists who likely share the radical political and social perspectives that dominate the homosexual activist movement.

Many of the journalists at the convention made their left-leaning partisanship and anti-religious prejudice clear. During a discussion on covering sex scandals, a panelist said, "There's a whole lot of hypocrisy on the Republican side, they spout this crap about family values all of the time, you know, gotta love my wife, yada yada yada..." The specific examples of hypocrisy he cited, however, were Democrats.

The session also discussed the ethics of "outing" homosexuals in politics. Two panelists said outing is okay if the politician opposes the homosexual agenda:

"If they are taking actions in their public life to deny gay and lesbian rights...then yes."

and

"If someone is advocating something that is specifically, uh, anti-gay, they're on a crusade, they are a Religious Right person on a crusade ... if they are advocating something that is going to take away our rights and they are presenting themselves false and they're throwing the sexuality issue out there, not their own, then I do think it's fair game."

Closeted politicians who oppose the homosexual political agenda get outed; those who support the agenda do not. Is this fair and balanced journalism, or using journalism as a political weapon?

Radical social perspectives? Several people at the convention bemoaned the failure of the homosexual rights movement to include transsexuals in ENDA (employment nondiscrimination) legislation. At least three men at the convention, including one panel speaker, are attempting to transform themselves into women.

At the welcoming reception, a man sported a T-shirt with "NAMBLA" boldly emblazoned on the front. NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, advocates pedophilia.

One panel openly discussed how to use journalism, specifically the coverage of religion, to promote the homosexual agenda. Panel organizer Mitchell Gold, a furniture magnate, said, "The single biggest [obstacle] to gays having equal rights in the country is religion," so "I set myself to learn about it." Panelist Ann Craig of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said, "We're not getting anyplace until we begin conquering the debate" in the religious community.

Here is an overall account of the NLGJA convention: NBC to ‘Gay' Journalists: ‘Your Victories Are Our Victories.'

Here is a detailed story about the panel that discussed how homosexual journalists should cover religion: ‘Gay' Journalism Conference Panel Targets Religious Influence on Public Policy.


McCain Calls Lewis' Charge 'Shocking'
AP

The Obama campaign said the Illinois senator doesn't believe McCain or his policy criticism is at all comparable to Wallace and his segregationist policies.
In a statement issued Saturday, Lewis said McCain and running mate Sarah Palin were "sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse." He noted that Wallace also ran for president.
"George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights," said Lewis, who is black. "Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama."
One of the seminal events of the civil rights movement was the bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963. Four black girls died in the blast, which was linked to a Ku Klux Klan group.
Late Saturday, Lewis released another statement saying it was not his "intention or desire" to directly compare McCain or Palin to Wallace.
McCain Counters Obama 'Arab' QuestionWhile on the campaign trail Friday, Republican presidential nominee John McCain countered views by some in his audience who expressed fear of an Obama presidency, and a notion that the Illinois senator was an Arab. (Oct. 11)
"My statement was a reminder to all Americans that toxic language can lead to destructive behavior," he said. "I am glad that Sen. McCain has taken some steps to correct divisive speech at his rallies. I believe we need to return to civil discourse in this election about the pressing economic issues that are affecting our nation."
Lewis' comments follow widely reported examples of anger at McCain rallies that has been aimed at Obama, the first black man to be a major party's nominee for president. During some rallies featuring McCain and Palin, supporters have shouted "traitor," "terrorist," "treason," "liar" and even "off with his head."
The outbursts came amid a harshly personal line of attack against Obama by the GOP campaign. McCain and Palin have said Obama failed to tell the truth about his ties to 1960s radical William Ayers, had a radical agenda on abortion, and wasn't really known to voters. Last weekend, Palin signaled the uptick in the criticism when she charged that Obama was "palling around with terrorists," a reference to Ayers, and that he didn't see the U.S. as others did.
McCain drew boos at a town-hall meeting Friday in Minnesota when he defended Obama after a supporter said he feared what would happen if Obama were elected president. He also cut short a woman who said Obama was an Arab, and he called his rival "a decent, family man."

On Saturday, McCain called on Obama to repudiate Lewis' remarks. While dismissing the comparison to Wallace, Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said Lewis was on target in other ways.
"John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night, as well as the baseless and profoundly irresponsible charges from his own running mate that the Democratic nominee for president of the United States 'pals around with terrorists,'" Burton said in a statement.
In his remarks, Lewis also said: "As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better."
McCain rejected any comparison to Wallace.

posted by Fred Martinez @ 10:53 AM