Questions about ethics for USA Today’s ‘queer’ bullies
This week, I did something that USA Today’s executive leadership apparently hadn’t done lately: I read the newspaper’s “principles of ethical conduct for newsrooms.”
It’s pretty highfalutin. The media manifesto of virtue says USA Today’s journalists are supposedly committed to: Seeking and reporting the truth in a truthful way; serving the public interest; exercising fair play; acting with integrity.
Now, let’s compare the lofty rhetoric with low-blow reality. On Sunday, 21-yearold University of Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray won the Heisman Trophy. He gave a gracious, emotional speech that celebrated his faith in God, respect for his fellow athletes, love of family, lifelong work ethic and team spirit.
“I know there’s a higher power looking down on me. He enables me to do all things. For that I’m grateful — for the many blessings FROM THE RIGHT Michelle Malkin Star Parker Jonah Goldberg Walter E. Williams Pat Buchanan Marc E. Thiessen George Will that God has blessed me with,” Murray humbly told reporters.
But one reporter was much more interested in sabotage. USA Today sports writer Scott Gleeson penned an article attacking Murray for posting “tweets using an anti-gay slur.” Murray and family awoke Monday to a barrage of character smears slamming his “homophobic” posts from six years ago — when Murray was 14 or 15 and jokingly called his friends “queer.” Google is now clogged with wall-to-wall coverage of his teenage antics.
Gleeson’s hit piece reeks of deceptive vigilantism, not journalism. After noting that Murray had a “Saturday to remember,” Gleeson wrote that “the Oklahoma quarterback’s memorable night also helped resurface social media’s memory of several homophobic tweets more than six years old.”
Who “resurfaced social media’s memory?” Why, it was Gleeson himself! By creating an illusion that Murray’s schoolboy tweets were the subject of any scrutiny and outrage other than Gleeson’s own, USA Today gave us a shining example of the manufacturing of fake news. Ain’t misleading passive voice grand?
Indeed, Gleeson’s own biography is one of a social justice advocate dedicated to identity politics propaganda. “My enterprise and human interest work on the LGBT movement in sports made me an APSE award finalist in 2016 and a USBWA award winner in 2017,” Gleeson boasts. Was he aiming for another award with his ambush of Murray? Gleeson certainly got his new scalp and paraded it prominently. Within hours of publication, Murray apologized.
On Tuesday, I wrote to USA Today’s editor in chief Nicole Carroll and executive editor for news Jeff Taylor with the following questions:
How does Gleeson’s article comport with USA Today’s stated principles of ethical conduct for newsrooms?
Specifically, how did the piece “serve the public interest,” “exercise fair play,” exhibit “fairness in relations with people unaccustomed to dealing with news media,” observe “standards of decency” and demonstrate “integrity”?
The editors have not responded yet. In the meantime, I have more questions.
How does lying in wait for unknown months or years (when Gleeson could have “resurfaced” the old tweets at any time) and publishing a smear in the middle of the night before giving Murray a chance to respond comport with the newspaper’s promises that: “We will be honest in the way we gather, report and present news — with relevancy, persistence, context, thoroughness, balance, and fairness in mind,” and “We will take responsibility for our decisions and consider the possible consequences of our actions.”
Tick tock.