In a June 17 post, the Media Research Center’s Tim Graham insisted it was an “objectivity scandal” that there was a controversy over a Michigan TV station issuing a memo stating that its reporters “get both sides” of LGBTQ issues because “conservative viewers” didn’t like that being covered at all:
Can you believe that? “We apologize for the misguided people who believe reporting on two sides of an issue, which shows disrespect for the marginalized LGBT community. Those aren’t our values!”
[…]Oh no! Someone expressed concern about the conservative viewers! This better be fixed! Someone dared to question the newsworthiness of drag brunches and burlesque troupes!
[…]The people who preach “expansive and inclusive” journalism mean the exact opposite. WOOD-TV is now posting happy one-sided propaganda about “The evolution of gay pride in Michigan.”
Graham doesn’t explain what, exactly, the other side of “LGBTQ issues” he wants in every story on the subject. That’s because it involves portraying non-heterosexual people as evil and unclean and are going to hell if they don’t repent of their wicked ways. He also doesn’t explain why saying nice things about LGBTQ people is “propaganda” and spewing hate at them is not — or why “conservative viewers” are such snowflakes that they can’t handle the fact they non-heterosexual people are human beings who deserve basic respect and that news about them be censored. It’s also unlikely that Graham will demand that “both sides” be told on any news story on “Christian issues.”
Graham also referenced the incident in his June 20 column, in which he whined that news coverage “shows ‘respect for….some members of the [LGBTQ] community.” Again, he didn’t explain what level of anti-LGBTQ hate he demands be put in any news story about them.
Ultimately the two top news directors at the station were fired, along with two producers accused of leaking the memo to the public.