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ELIZABETH WEILL-GREENBERG
Friday, December 09, 2005
Stephen B. Johnson stepped down as school board chair in Richmond, Va., this week after the Richmond Times-Dispatch published an article about a personal ad he posted on Manhunt.net, a sexually explicit online cruising site for gay men.
“Things have been rough to a point,” Johnson told the Blade in an interview.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported last week that Johnson posted an ad with a bare-chested photo and an “explicitly worded” profile. Johnson told the Times-Dispatch the profile was “stupid” and removed it from the site. The newspaper did not report the exact text of the ad.
Manhunt.net features photos of clothed and nude men, many looking for sex.
“I have had a tremendous amount of support, more than I ever thought I would have,” Johnson said, adding that out of 1,000 e-mails he received, only two were negative.
At last week’s board of education meeting, when Johnson announced his resignation as chair, the superintendent told Johnson she had “never been prouder” of him, the Times-Dispatch reported. After she stood to applaud him, almost everyone else in the room joined her. Johnson remains a member of the board.
Johnson, who is unmarried, said he neither announced nor hid his sexual orientation. The Richmond Times-Dispatch crossed a line by publishing the story, he said. A colleague who was retaliating over a dispute tipped off the paper, he said.
A spokesperson for the Richmond Times-Dispatch was not available for comment.
“The whole event was politically motivated because I spoke out against city hall,” he said. “Somebody who was supposed to be my friend, I believe, did this to me.”
Johnson has been fighting with the mayor to keep the board of education inside the City Hall building. The origin of the tip was not mentioned in the Times-Dispatch stories, only that it received “telephone tips.” The paper did not explain in its stories why it did not publish the name of who tipped off the paper.
“It’s very important who tipped off the paper and why,” said Kelly McBride, the Ethics Group leader at the Poynter Institute, a media studies organization in St. Petersburg, Fla. “Everybody has ulterior motives, it’s best to reveal ulterior motives for what they are.”
While the news tip may have been political, Johnson said the paper pursued the story because he is gay.
“I don’t believe this has to do with the actual ad,” he said. “It has to do with the fact that I’m a gay person leading the school system.”
Johnson, a Democrat, said he decided to step down to take the focus off of himself, and put it back on the students, where it belongs.
“I’m not ashamed of who I am,” he said. “I’m not ashamed I posted an ad. I should have been more careful. I have a right to a private life.”
But reporters, editors and ethicists often debate and disagree about just how private details of a public figure’s life should be, regardless of whether the person is gay or straight.
Eric Hegedus, president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, said the Richmond Times-Dispatch was justified in reporting the story and handled it responsibly. The fact that Johnson posted his ad on a gay website was not “overplayed” in the paper’s coverage, said Hegedus, who is a graphic designer at the New York Post.
“We came to the conclusion that there wasn’t anything objectionable or sensationalistic about [the stories],” Hegedus told the Blade. “We decided if he had posted something sexually graphic on a straight website, we felt this would potentially be news.”
But McBride said the Richmond newspaper didn’t explain to its readers why the story was newsworthy.
“The paper needs to justify the news value in it,” she said.
Often in stories about sex and sexuality, wrongdoing is alluded to but not explicitly explained, she said.
“There’s never a story that explores what about [Johnson’s] act was offensive and so, as a reader, you’re left to project your own lens on it,” she said. “Is it the fact that he was using an online service, a questionable online service? Is it the fact that it was a gay service?
“It leaves people assuming because it has to do with homosexual behavior, it’s bad.” McBride said.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg can be reached at eweill-greenberg@washblade.com.
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