Feb 25, 2005  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

a target of liberal political activists.

“What you have in the Guckert case is left-wing people using homophobia to destroy a Republican operative,” Boez said. “Even Republicans are entitled to be gay and to run porn Web sites.”

Although he agrees that Guckert was wrong to work as a White House reporter while using a false name, he said he was puzzled that Guckert’s transgression in this area created such a fuss.

“This story is a lot less important than the resignation of [CNN news director] Eason Jordan,” Boez said. Jordan resigned from his CNN post after conservative bloggers disclosed that he allegedly stated at a conference in Europe that the U.S. military in Iraq might have deliberately shot at journalists covering battles.

Jordan later denied he made such a remark but said he chose to resign to put an end to what he feared would be an onslaught of attacks against CNN by conservative critics.

“I guess this shows that sex gets more attention,” Boez said.

Brian Montopoli, news media critic for Columbia Journalism Review’s online CJR Daily, said it’s “definitely not” fair game to reveal the private life of someone like Guckert, even though he disagrees with Guckert’s conservative political views.

Montopoli said Guckert has become a “pawn” in the liberal-conservative political wars, and has taken hits from liberal bloggers who have used his personal life to discredit him for the wrong reason. Critics should have continued to go after Guckert for his role as a partisan political operative masquerading as a reporter, Montopoli said.

“Guckert’s real crime isn’t hypocrisy, it’s his contempt for honest journalism,” he said.

Washington Blade executive editor Chris Crain said the Blade reports the sexual orientation of someone in a so-called outing only in very rare circumstances, and in Guckert’s case probably went too far.

“Gannon/Guckert had already been ‘outed’ by bloggers and in the mainstream press by the time our story appeared in print,” he said. “But the danger in deciding to out someone, whether that decision is made by an activist, a blogger or the media, is in weighting how much information about that person’s life needs to be exposed in the process.

“In this instance,” Crain said, “the Blade reported allegations made by others about Gannon/Guckert’s past work on adult Web sites and as an escort, as well as allegations about his attendance at a sex party in Virginia. These allegations were relevant and newsworthy, but in retrospect, our reporting went considerably further than necessary to raise the ‘hypocrisy’ issue for readers,” Crain said.

Lou