By Jack Nichols
New York, New York --FOX News titan Roger Ailes, writes Michelangelo Signorile in the March 8 New York Observer, was seen "scarfing down hors d'oeuvres at the cocktail party"—a fundraiser for the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist's Association. The occasion, said Signorile, was bizarre. Why?
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Signorile explains: " Mr. Ailes, after all, is the media wizard who helped
both Ronald Reagan and George Bush court rabidly antigay religious zealots in
successive political campaigns, often screaming at gay activists along the campaign
trail and doing whatever he could to silence them when the cameras began
rolling. And he today works for ultraconservative Rupert Murdoch, whose
New York Post and other publications have cast homosexuals as the
greatest threat to modern civilization." |
Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch has come under fire from gay activists. |
Ultraconservative FOX owner, Rupert Murdoch, was, as noted in November by GayToday, at the center of his London tabloid's homophobic scandal which suggested a "Gay Mafia" is running the United Kingdom. GLAAD's exasperation with Rupert's FOX news-gatherers in the U.S. showed up after its failed attempt to deal rationally with FOX executives. Problematic was the showing of a falsified January 21segment of the Fox Files titled: "Undercover in the Night".
Describing the segment, GLAAD characterized it as: "unfair, inaccurate and unbalanced…a series of short, unsubstantiated and dangerous stories mixed into a slick and sensationalistic package that serves to demonize members of the community."
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Fred McKissack, writes in the current issue of The Progressive of his surprise at seeing "two highly regarded journalists, Catherine Crier and Jon Scott hosting a show (Fox Files) which gave him to believe he would be taking a legitimate tour into violent urban gay street gang territory.
"It turned out, though, writes McKissack, "that the 'gay gangs' were just some kids who got into fist fights with other kids who insulted them. In one case, a gay guy punched a young woman who was with a guy he wanted to date. Bad behavior? Yes. But national news?…when all you have is some kids punching each other, you've got to go searching for drama. Add creepy music, jerky camera motions, MTV graphics, and drugged-out gay youth, and you have a titillating story..."
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Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:
Rupert Murdoch's Tabloid -- The Sun -- Repents Homophobic Stance
Great Britain: Scandals Erupt
Over 4 Cabinet Ministers
The Fox Files Fiasco
Related Sites:
Journalists Jane Akre & Steve Wilson Web Site
GayToday does not endorse related sites.
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In the wake of this Fox Files controversy GayToday learned that a much-heralded FOX-affiliate husband and wife news team (with 20 years experience) at WTVT in Florida are suing the FOX affiliate for breach of contract in connection with another unrelated news story in which the affiliate insisted, they say, that they lie.
Reporters Steve Wilson and Jane Akre |
"We were repeatedly ordered to go forward and broadcast demonstrably inaccurate and dishonest versions of the story (we'd worked on)," said journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson. In Alternative Press Review Wilson writes: |
"The investigative report produced by me and my reporting colleague Jane Akre was not killed by FOX Television. Instead, as we explain in a lawsuit we filed…FOX managers and their lawyers ordered us to distort, twist, and slant a story and threatened us with immediate dismissal if we would not broadcast material we knew to be false and misleading."
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