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Just How ‘Gay’ is The New York Times? Ask Richard Berke 2/5/2003
By Peter LaBarbera Original Story Exposed ‘Gay’ Influence at Nation's Most Influential Newspaper CFI Media Accountability Project
Editor-in-chief’s note: The following is the original story from the now-defunct Lambda Report that reported a comment by New York Times national correspondent Richard Berke that “literally three-quarters of the people deciding what’s on the front page [of the Times] are not-so-closeted homosexuals.” Berke, a homosexual, was speaking at an April 12, 2000, reception sponsored by the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA). The story and Berke’s quotation received wide circulation in conservative circles but the original article was never posted on the Web.
LaBarbera—then publisher of Lambda Report (a conservative newsletter that monitored the “gay” movement) and currently editor of the Culture & Family Report—attended the meeting where Berke made the comment. Recently, LaBarbera received an e-mail from a third party that contained comments from an NLGJA official disparaging the story. (However, the official did not dispute Berke's “75 percent” remark.) In the interest of accuracy, here is the original article.
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Just How Gay Is The New York Times? Reprinted from the Lambda Report on Homosexuality April-May 2000
The pro-homosexual metamorphosis at The New York Times has advanced so far that on any given day, three-quarters of the people who decide what goes on the front page are “not so closeted homosexuals,” according to Richard Berke, the Times’ National Political Correspondent.
Berke, a longtime member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLFJA), made the following comments at a 10th anniversary reception for the group April 12 in Washington, D.C.:
“This is at a newspaper where not so long ago—when I started there 15 years ago—the department heads were asking for lists of the gay reporters on different sections so they could be punished in different ways. So things have really changed at the newspaper. Since I’ve been there there’s been a dramatic shift: I remember coming and wondering if there were any gay reporters there or whatever. Now it’s like, there are times when you look at the front-page meeting and … literally three-quarters of the people deciding what’s on the front page are not-so-closeted homosexuals. … [It is] a real far cry from what it was like not so long ago.”
Berke was one of the speakers at the NLGJA’s “View from the Top” reception, held at the National Press Club April 12. Lambda Report reporter Peter LaBarbera attended the event, which was sponsored by America Online Inc., USA Today, The Washington Post, and CBS News. The NLGJA is currently engaged in a campaign to raise its membership to 2,000 by the end of the year. |
