Conflict of whose interest?
National gay journalist group drops fired gay reporter from panel
By CHRISTOPHER SEELY
Houston Voice
Friday, May 07, 2004
When the New York Times fired freelance reporter Jay Blotcher over his past affiliation with AIDS group ACT UP, he says he felt wronged since he saw no conflict of interest with the work he did more than a decade ago and his non-AIDS related work for the Times.
But last month when the National Lesbian & Gay Journalism Association removed Blotcher from serving on a panel at the group’s national convention this summer, he says he felt betrayed again.
“You expect injustice against gays and lesbians in this world — you don’t expect to see it in your own community,” Blotcher said.
NLGJA has apologized to Blotcher, but won’t reinstate him on the panel, said Eric Hegedus, vice president of print and new media for NLGJA.
“The convention planners found some individuals who were better suited,” Hegedus said.
Blotcher, a former NLGJA member, was originally asked to speak on a panel discussing ethical guidelines for gay reporters covering gay issues. But once convention planners fleshed out the session — a 90-minute forum on whether a gay reporter can objectively report on issues such as gay marriage — they selected journalists that work in mainstream newsrooms, instead of freelancers like Blotcher, Hegedus said.
Several plenary sessions are included in the NLGJA’s convention in New York, scheduled for June 24-27.
The session coordinator contacted Blotcher to serve on the panel, but NLGJA “powers that be” said they would “prefer Jay not be on the panel,” said Kelly McBride, the session moderator and an ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in Florida.
“I’m assuming that NLGJA leadership is acting in good faith,” McBride said.
BLOTCHER ASKED NLGJA for a written explanation for being removed from the panel, but had not received one at press time, he said. Blotcher did receive an apologetic telephone call after the Washington Blade made inquiries about the matter at NLGJA, he said.
Blotcher criticized NLGJA for not backing him after the New York Times fired him. He said his ouster from the newspaper is retribution, in part, for ACT UP’s outspoken criticism of the Times’ coverage of AIDS in the 1980s.
“NLGJA does not have a record of being courageous or have a high profile of taking a stand on any issues,” he said.
But Blotcher’s case was too ambiguous for NLGJA to become involved, Hegedus said.
“We initially offered him some advice and suggested an employment lawyer,” Hegedus said. “It was a personnel matter, and we couldn’t understand all circumstances.”
The Times dismissed Blotcher in January, not over his membership in ACT UP, but “because of his work as a press spokesman and a public relations consultant,” Arthur Sulzberger, chair of the New York Times Co., said at a shareholders meeting April 13, according to meeting transcripts obtained by Blotcher.
Blotcher served as media coordinator for ACT UP from April 1989 to January 1990.
Ann Northrop, one of the original members of NLGJA, said she was “appalled” by NLGJA’s refusal to take a stand against the New York Times decision and for “kicking him off the plenary session.”
“NLGJA should be up in arms about it and instead they’d rather hold expensive fund-raising dinners where they cozy up to establishment media bigwigs rather than challenge the policies and practices of those mainstream media,” Northrop said.
Northrop, a former journalist with CBS News and ABC, now anchors the national cable television show “Gay USA” on the Dish network.
NLGJA officers declined comment on the criticism.