FOX News Channel Caught Donating $10,000 to Gay Journalist Organization

From FOX News Channel Caught Donating $10,000 to Gay Journalist Organization, by John-Henry Westen, published Sept 8, 2006, by LifeSite News:

While the left likes to pretend that Fox News Channel is a right-wing conservative news organization, Fox has always claimed it is “fair and balanced”, trying to portray the image of center of the road. However, their “fair and balanced” claim will be under close scrutiny by conservatives this week as a pro-family group has asked Fox News to match a $10,000 donation to a homosexual journalism organization, with a donation to pro-family group.

Fox News is listed as a “Feature Level” sponsor of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) annual convention which began yesterday and runs through the weekend in Miami. See the NGLA sponsorship page featuring Fox News as a sponsor: http://www.nlgja.org/convention/2006/sponsors.htm

The controversy is of heightened intensity since the leader of the NLGJA recently compared pro-family critics of homosexuality to “white supremacists.”

Americans for Truth (AFT) is asking Fox News Channel to be “fair and balanced” by giving $10,000 to a conservative group to match its donation to NLGJA. In a letter sent today to Fox News Channel President Roger Ailes, AFT President Peter LaBarbera wrote: “FOX News cannot claim to be ‘fair and balanced’ in its coverage of homosexuality while providing large grants to a special interest group like the [NLGJA] that demonizes religious conservatives and, worse, seeks to influence the media nationwide to exclude conservative critics of the homosexual political/cultural agenda from gay-related stories.”

NLGJA National President Eric Hegedus has suggested that covering “both sides” of homosexuality-related issues is like quoting the KKK on stories about race. On NLGJA’s website, Hegedus wrote: “How appropriate is it to quote interviewees whose ideas could be considered homophobic? … Certainly, news organizations have written extensively about white supremacists and other hate groups… But I doubt that any journalist is adding them to a source contact list for bringing ‘balance’ to future stories about reparations, interracial marriage, the Holocaust or immigration. That same ethic needs to extend to LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] coverage, too.” (see the full message from Hegedus: http://www.nlgja.org/news/presidentmessagewinter06.htm )

LaBarbera suggests in his letter that Fox News Channel give a “balancing grant” to a pro-family organization since it would “signal that Fox News Channel is committed to living up to its credo and not taking sides in the Culture War.” LaBarbera adds, “It would also … show respect for the tens of millions of Americans who do not deserve to be likened to the KKK simply for adhering to historic Judeo-Christian beliefs.”

In related news, Wal-Mart Corporation is also listed among the $10,000 sponsors of the NLGJA convention.

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