 | ||||||
 | ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
| Hot Type, for the week of July 8, 2005 -- continued
Don't Judge the Criticism by the Critics In Chicago it's been one media scandal after another. Peter LaBarbera just accused the local media of "violating all the rules of impartiality in covering controversial issues." Debbie Schlussel just jeered that "in his zeal to call me a 'creep,' Chicago Sun-Times sports 'columnist' Ron Rapoport invented and attributed to me a quote I never wrote or uttered." If only these accusations were totally false. Consider LaBarbera's first. He's executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, which is based in Glen Ellyn and exists to defend "marriage, the natural family and the sanctity of life." In his view, "Homosexual behavior will always be wrong -- no matter how many 'pride' parades are held or how powerful the 'gay' lobby becomes." So how is it, he wonders, that Chicago's media can claim evenhanded coverage of the Gay Pride parade when they have floats in it? I'm not sure Chicago's media make any such claim, but that's not to say they shouldn't be able to. I said to him, is it like a radio station having a float in the Cinco de Mayo parade but having no time for anybody who advocates shipping all these people back to Tijuana? "Ethnic- and racial-heritage parades are by and large noncontroversial," said LaBarbera. "There's a huge societal split on the issue of homosexuality." Not in Chicago, I said. There's more to Illinois than Chicago, he said. The Illinois Family Institute Web site bubbled with activity in the days before the June 26 parade. One headline fretted: "Will It Happen Again This Year? IFI's LaBarbera Filmed Homosexual Men Committing Lewd Act Directly in Front of Police Line at 2004 Chicago 'Pride' Parade. Warning: Graphic Description Follows." The morning of the parade LaBarbera fired off a news release announcing that he was available "to provide another viewpoint." But his cell phone didn't ring. "No media called for another viewpoint," his Web site admitted the next day, "and the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times both included only homosexuality-affirming voices in their stories." I called LaBarbera and said it was unusual for an organization to let the world know it had issued a news release everyone ignored. "We didn't want to telegraph our impotence," he explained, "but we did want to telegraph to the media that there are two sides to this issue." Then there's Debbie Schlussel. She's a blogger, online columnist, and Fox TV personality whom Ron Rapoport had somehow never heard of despite her appearances on Howard Stern. Schlussel was outraged at the way the Sun-Times sports columnist had misrepresented her. On June 22 he wrote: "OK, who's the bigger creep? Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone, who said women in racing like [Danica] Patrick should be 'dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances,' or conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel, who wrote, 'Patrick looks like a woman, as opposed to the 169 players in the WNBA, who look like men.' In case you didn't get what Schlussel was driving at, she labeled her piece 'Lesbian Basketball, Season 9 vs. the Indy Chick.'" Rapoport hadn't actually read Schlussel's commentary, which appeared online on June 1. "I made a mistake," he told me. He'd read a column in the Arizona Republic by the WNBA's Kayte Christensen, who was responding to what she called Schlussel's "idiocy and insults." Christensen had quoted the title of Schlussel's piece accurately, but she'd paraphrased the rest of it, writing, "According to Schlussel . . . the difference between WNBA players and Patrick is that Patrick looks like a woman, as opposed to the 169 players in the WNBA, who look like men." Rapoport carelessly attributed this paraphrase to Schlussel. Here's what Schlussel actually wrote: "What's the difference between the WNBA and Danica Patrick? For one thing, she looks like a woman, and they don't." For those of you curious about Schlussel's thought processes, here's more: "Take a look at the raven-haired, petite Patrick with her long tresses," she went on. "Then, look at the 7'2" Margo Dydek of Connecticut's WNBA team -- if you dare. Which one would guys rather date? Which one would most young girls rather be like when they grow up? Hint: They aren't making a scale version of Dydek Barbie anytime soon. Dyslexic young girls might unscramble the letters of her surname and get the right idea of what the WNBA is really about." Schlussel e-mailed Rapoport demanding a retraction. What she got was a wretchedly worded correction on June 24 that said a "quote attributed to commentator Debbie Schlussel . . . should have been attributed to Phoenix Mercury forward Kayte Christensen." The Sun-Times was fortunate not to hear from Christensen's lawyers. If Schlussel -- who didn't answer my e-mail -- spotted the correction she didn't acknowledge it. Her last word online was: "***UPDATE: After an e-mail to Rapoport pointing out that he fabricated and plagiarized his column, attributing a quote to me that I never uttered or wrote, Rapoport has the chutzpah to ask me to send him the column. What am I -- his researcher? Call me a 'creep,' do your own research, lazy writer." It's not that Schlussel can't take criticism. On her blog site, readers tear into her. "If you are a woman, you're a disgrace to our gender," one posted. Another said, "Very offensive and very shallow." A third said, "If Danica Patrick is even one-half the woman I think she is, she will demand you take her name out of your pathetic, sexist, homophobic diatribe." Schlussel kept her silence. But she won't sit still for inaccuracy. Send tips, tirades, and comments to hottype@chicagoreader.com |
 |  |