When news broke last week of the arrests of Tim Russell, a longtime political associate of Gov. Scott Walker, and Russell’s domestic partner Brian Pierick, the Wisconsin Gazette didn’t shy away from the fact that Russell and Pierick are gay. The newspaper even highlighted the angle on its Facebook page.
That sort of direct reporting is standard with the Gazette, which focuses on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. “We’re reporters first and foremost,” editor and publisher Louis Weisberg tells Pressroom Buzz. When a gay person is in the news, “whether it’s positive or negative is something we don’t have any control over.”
The paper’s willingness to cover negative stories about members of the gay community as well as positive ones might seem second-nature in the news business, yet it’s a less-than-universal practice in niche publications, especially advocacy journals serving marginalized communities.
But Weisberg says it simply reflects his judgment that his readers deserve all the news that reflects their community and don’t have to be shielded from less-flattering stories.
Does he get pushback? “Sometimes,” Weisberg admits. “On my Facebook page, people say, ‘Why are you highlighting these negative items? What does it accomplish?’”
His response is matter-of-fact. “It is what it is,” he says of bad-news stories. “I’m reporting things that are happening. I’m not telling people what to think of them.”
After all, “straight papers cover straight criminals,” Weisberg says with a laugh.
“The fundamental premise is that LGBT people are everywhere, and we are involved in all areas of life and society. We certainly have a number of stories of wonderful gay people.” Among many, he points to the paper’s prominent coverage of Daniel Hernandez, the gay intern credited with possibly saving the life of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in a mass shooting a year ago.
“As my grandmother used to say, ‘You gotta take the bitter with the sweet,’” Weisberg says.
It’s all part of positioning the Gazette as a serious news source. That’s how Weisberg, who has a lengthy resume in both gay and mainstream journalism, has envisioned the paper from its start two years ago, bankrolled by Leonard Sobczak, a prominent Milwaukee gay real estate broker and political insider.
“People pick our paper up because they expect to read about what’s happening in the gay community and what LGBT people are doing,” Weisberg says. “And some of the things they do are unfortunate.”
Moreover, in an era when anyone with a laptop and a website can assume the role of press critic, suppressing negative information will just give ammunition to anyone hostile to the paper and what it stands for. “We’d be very vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy if we didn’t cover those things. You lose trust with your readers that way,” he says. “I’m aware it doesn’t make our community look good. But I don’t have much credibility for anything if I ignore a story because of how it makes someone look.”
Although most of the story focused on the charges against Russell of embezzling from campaign funds and diverting money from a charity for killed or wounded veterans, it didn’t ignore unrelated sex-crime charges against Pierick. But Weisberg acknowledges that there was debate among his paper’s small staff over how much to write about the Pierick allegations. The outcome was a brief but frank account that didn’t mince words but also didn’t dwell on lurid details.
Russell’s sexual orientation also fits in with an ongoing topic of special interest to Weisberg and the Gazette: the emerging role of gays in politics — including some who work for candidates who take anti-gay positions.
Last week’s arrest wasn’t the first time Russell found his way into the Gazette’s pages. He was one of several people identified (though he wasn’t quoted) in an October 2010 story Weisberg wrote on gay Walker supporters, which noted Russell was active in the pro-gay-rights Log Cabin Republicans. The story on Russell’s arrest also mentioned his Log Cabin involvement.
Russell’s longtime association with Walker is “particularly interesting,” Weisberg says. Walker “ran as a right-wing candidate, and he’s done anti-gay things since he’s been in office” — principally, dropping the state’s defense of the domestic partner legislation passed under Gov. Jim Doyle. Yet as a political supporter and activist on Walker’s behalf, “Tim Russell was a very big part of his life for 10 years.” And an allegation that Russell and Pierick used the screen name “walker04” on pornographic sites adds a further twist.
Walker’s longtime reliance on Russell “sheds a light onto something else that affects gay people,” Weisberg adds. “The hypocrisy of some of those right-wing, family-values leaders who use inflammatory rhetoric to get votes from people who hate us but then turn around and benefit from our services.”
But ignoring stories like the Russell-Pierick arrests and the unavoidable gay angle was out of the question. “It’s out there, it happened, and people pick us up for information,” Weisberg says. “They expect us to be paying attention.”
Incidentally, the Gazette is a side beneficiary of the donnybrook settled last fall between Roundy’s Supermarkets and the Shepherd Express. Roundy’s, as I reported in November, backed off from a plan to ban free papers from its vestibules after Shepherd owner Louis Fortis mounted a crusade implying that the grocery chain was carrying out a political agenda (a charge Roundy’s staunchly denied). After the company relented, Weisberg says he contacted Roundy’s and asked for distribution rights as well.
“We’ll start distributing in 10 of their stores,” including Pick ’n Save and Metro Market, with hopes to grow from there. “It will be a good circulation boost.”
How tough are things between the Journal Sentinel management and Newspaper Guild Local 51, the union representing newsroom workers at the paper?
Consider this (which took place after my last Pressroom Buzz): When the United Way conducted its annual drive last fall, the union decided to boycott the company campaign for the charity — but not the United Way itself. In a press release, the Guild announced:
Round after round of staff reductions, including layoffs, paired with lavish bonuses for top executives, have alienated potential contributors among reporters, editors and other staff in the Journal Sentinel newsroom, Local 51 President Tom Silverstein said. The ensuing hard-line contract bargaining efforts to eliminate longstanding benefit and pay structures have exacerbated the situation, Silverstein said.
Alerted that many employees felt uncomfortable giving to the United Way through the company-sponsored campaign, The Guild set up an alternative way for all newsroom employees to donate individually or in the name of Local 51. The result was that United Way contributors found an alternative way to donate, and a number of employees who hadn’t given in the past did so through The Guild.
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