Michelangelo Signorile denounces "holier than thou" lectures from some media outlets on the recent Aaron Schock gay rumors:
Journalist Itay Hod wrote on his Facebook page that his friend walked in on a roommate and the congressman in his shower. Hod was inspired to write about that after reading a post on Americablog, "The 7 Gayest Aaron Schock Instagram Posts of 2013," which also noted that the newly-out diving champion Tom Daley was among the 71 people Schock followed.
Is any of that hard evidence? Of course not, and certainly there's no firsthand source by name. But is it interesting information for reporters and pundits to: a) speculate about, discuss, debate, rehash, spin, dig, and make phone calls about, as they do with so many other issues which might be true about public figures — many of which are complete non-stories; and b) ask Aaron Shock about directly as he enters the halls of Congress, heads to the supermarket or turns up at the next cocktail party?
You better believe it.
Instead, we've seen holier-than-thou lectures about stereotyping people as gay, like this one on Buzzfeed, which is in on all the click-bait action — complete with the photo and front-page placement — while positioning itself as above it all. Or Slate's Dave Weigel, disappointingly taking a swipe at "the usual crop of SEO-engine-greasing sites" for covering the story while lauding "more tasteful outlets, like Buzzfeed," under the big photo and headline, "What If a Republican Congressman Got Outed and Nobody Cared?" This was the second time in the past few weeks that Slate ran a piece about an outing that supposedly wasn't really important enough for anyone to care about, but which Slate still had to ask the question about, complete with the photo. The last one was, "Why Did Gawker Out Shepard Smith?" If outing stories are so unimportant and have no effect, or shouldn't be reported, why do they all keep writing about them?
Signorile, who has been reporting on "outing" for two decades also talks about the history of the term and how Schock is getting let off the hook.
Read it here.
