Aug 20, 2004  |  By: BRYAN ANDERTON  | COMMENTS     

For the past several months, noted San Francisco-based AIDS activist Michael Petrelis has been on the hunt. His prey: journalists and newspaper publishers who have contributed money to political candidates.

Petrelis’ mission began back in March, when he fired off the first of many letters to the New York Times about members of its editorial staff giving money to politicians. The letter was then posted on his blog site, as have others since then targeting similar donations made by personnel at other news outlets, including the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Wall Street Journal and others.

In recent weeks, Petrelis has shifted gears slightly. In an interview with the Dallas Voice, a gay newspaper, Petrelis said he is now investigating members of the gay press, including the Washington Blade.

In the Dallas Voice interview, Petrelis revealed that William Waybourn, the president of Window Media, which owns the Washington Blade, has given numerous contributions totaling $6,950 to various candidates and groups, including Florida congressional candidate Jim Stork (D), Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Wisconsin state Sen. Tim Carpenter (D) and the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.

In addition to the Washington Blade, Waybourn oversees business operations at the New York Blade, Southern Voice and David magazine in Atlanta, the Houston Voice and the Express Gay News in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Waybourn, who co-founded the Victory Fund and served as its first executive director, is not involved in the journalism side of those publications, which are overseen by Chris Crain, the company’s editorial director.

Petrelis has also cited contributions by former Bay Area Reporter Publisher Bob Ross, who died last year, and former Blade Executive Editor Lisa Keen, who left the newspaper in 2002 but still works as a freelance writer for PlanetOut.com, Bay Windows in Boston and other media outlets.

Petrelis declined numerous requests to comment for this story. It is unknown whether he is planning to target journalists at other gay media outlets.

Ethics violation?
Waybourn said Petrelis never contacted him directly to ask about the contributions, and that he first heard about it when contacted for the Dallas Voice story. Waybourn noted that he doesn’t have a problem with the information being reported.

“It doesn’t bother me one way or the other,” Waybourn said. “This is publicly available information.”

A journalism watchdog group, however, said such contributions could be a violation of standard journalism ethics, depending upon who is making the donations and whether readers are made aware of them.

“There are times when you take jobs where [donating money to political candidates] may not be right, it may hurt the work you’re doing,” said Amy Mitchell, associate director of the D.C.-based Project for Excellence in Journalism.

“If that’s the case, it’s a decision that the individual reporter, editor or publisher needs to be making along with the other people in the organization and the audience as to whether that’s something that would pose a problem.”

Mitchell said her group was not strictly opposed to journalists making such contributions, but strongly believes that the news outlet has a responsibility to make those contributions known to its audience. On his blog, Petrelis has taken the same position.

“Basically, the most important element when it comes to issues like this is transparency and openness with whatever the policy is and whatever the individual is doing,” Mitchell said. She added that the audience needs to be made aware of such issues “so they can judge for themselves whether or not this individual’s work may or may not be in conflict with their own personal interests.”

Waybourn said that he doesn’t see his contributions as being a conflict of interest, since he doesn’t write news stories or have any involvement in the shaping editorial content.

“I’m sure there are people who may believe there is a conflict of interest there, but our editorial staff covers the news as they see it,” Waybourn said. “How I make my contributions doesn’t affect whether someone gets a positive or negative story.”

Crain said the company’s editorial division has a strict prohibition against giving money to candidates. Breaking that rule can be grounds for termination, he said.

Records show that Blade News Editor Ken Sain contributed a total of $1,025 to Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign in 2000, three years before he joined the Blade staff in May 2003. No other current editorial employees have made contributions, according to a search on the Web site Tray.com.

Sain is listed as working for the Cincinnati Enquirer at the time he contributed the money. But Sain said he submitted his resignation to the Enquirer ...