Sep 22, 2006  |  By: ERIC ERVIN  | COMMENTS     

ONCE “FAIR AND BALANCED.” Now promoting the “homosexual agenda?”

Fox News Channel, the media giant often accused of having a conservative slant, is now under fire from one of its past allies — the Illinois-based Americans for Truth, which bills itself as “the only national organization devoted exclusively to exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda.”

Headed by Peter LaBarbera, Americans for Truth is accusing Fox News Channel of bias, saying the media giant promotes homosexuality after it spent $10,000 to sponsor the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association Convention, held Sept. 7-10 in Miami.

“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,” LaBarbera wrote in a Sept. 8 letter to Fox News President Roger Ailes, according to a press release from Americans for Truth issued the same day.

LaBarbera could not be reached for comment by press time. In a Sept. 17 interview on MassResistance Radio, which airs on AM 1150 WTTT in Boston, he said NLGJA and its members “spin the news in a pro-homosexual way.”

LaBarbera, who once referred to Fox News as “one of the best things to happen to media in this country in a long time,” is demanding the company donate $10,000 to what he calls a “pro-family” organization if it is to keep its reputation as “fair and balanced.”

Fox officials did not return calls seeking comment.

NLGJA does not promote a “homosexual agenda,” according to the group’s president, Eric Hegedus of the New York Post, which is owned by Fox News’ parent company, News Corporation.

“We’re not a gay activist group,” he said. “We’re a journalist organization.”

Hegedus said part of the association’s mission is for members to remain objective in their reporting. He said the organization also benefits non-gay journalists by providing professional guidance on reporting about gay marriage, coming out and other gay issues.

“We’re not a pro-gay or anti-gay organization. Our mission is to provide fair and accurate coverage,” Hegedus said.

In the Sept. 8 press release, Americans for Truth also noted that Wal-Mart was a corporate sponsor of the NLGJA conference, but the group did not take aim at any of the other media outlets that served as sponsors at the same or higher levels as Fox News.

Those outlets include Bloomberg, NBC Universal, the Miami Herald, CBS News, CNN, the Hearst Corporation, Gannett Foundation and ESPN.

LABARBERA ALSO WENT AFTER Hegedus personally, saying he was offended by a comment he claimed Hegedus made in an editorial that compared seeking out conservative groups to interview about gay issues to contacting white supremacist groups to discuss race relations.

“This is the kind of abject bigotry that these people espouse and yet they’re trying to claim that they’re just news professionals,” LaBarbera said during the radio show.

Hegedus denied any bias in the NLGJA president’s column he wrote for the group’s Winter 2006 newsletter.

“He’s taking what I wrote totally out of context,” Hegedus said.

Hegedus said he only suggested journalists be cautious when seeking out sources for stories.