Garrett Glaser - Los Angeles Times


Garrett Glaser - Los Angeles Times

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Re “Out of the TV Newsroom Closet” (Sept. 3): In 1978, I was taken to my first gay bar by two newsroom co-workers at KNXT-TV, now KCBS-TV. They warned me never to talk about this at work.


While I was grateful for my initiation into a bit of gay culture, another message was clear: Stay in the closet at Channel 2, or else.


This would not be the case at my next two jobs as an on-air reporter-weatherman in Roanoke, Va., and Austin, Tex. Save one reporter, I and my sexuality were accepted by my fellow employees.


I believe I experienced no discrimination. The same holds true for the network on which I appear today, American Movie Classics.


I applaud fellow journalist Garrett Glaser for going one critical step further--identifying himself publicly as a gay who’s concerned about issues that affect his community. Just like


everyone else.


It is beyond me why the homosexual/heterosexual orientation of a news reader should have any bearing on the substance or the import of the news. Should news from Bosnia have a bisexual


slant? From Rwanda a gay perspective?


Let news copy be prepared accurately, honestly and impartially and be read (and shown) clearly, intelligently and without ostentatious showmanship.