Poynter on the Record

To be fair, no one in the media -- not even Rudy Galindo, who was extensively quoted in a controversial Chicago Tribune article last week -- has said flat-out that Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir is gay.

Then again, no one had to...

A quick database search of major print media outlets turned up 160 uses of the word "flamboyant" to describe Weir in the past 90 days, with several sports reporters describing his failure to win an Olympic medal this week as a "flameout" or other variations on the word "flaming." (The controversial Olympian Bode Miller, by contrast, was typically described as "reckless" or "rebellious.") ...

"The first question is: What's the journalistic purpose of reporting someone's sexual orientation, especially against that person's will -- why does it matter?" says Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar and media ethicist at the Poynter Institute, a leading journalism research group. "I think the answer has to be more than, 'It's just interesting.' A news organization that publishes very private information like that, even about public figures, has a responsibility to be transparent about their news judgment."
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