Saturday, April 17, 2004 5:19 PM
BY KAREN OCAMB
Iraq, gay marriage, Ralph Nader, the Latino vote in November and journalistic ethics were just some of the hot topics debated at a March 9 political panel sponsored by the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, in association with the Press Club.
Public issues talk show host and former Press Club president Bill Rosendahl moderated the panel, with Press Club board member and political columnist Jill Stewart and Club member and commentator Tom Elias voicing strong opinions.
Julio Moran, executive director of the California Chicano News Media Association, KPCC reporter Frank Stoltz, and Chad Graham, news editor at The Advocate, the nation’s largest gay and lesbian news- magazine, also participated.
“The media are sheep!” proclaimed Stewart after an audience member asked why tougher questions aren’t asked by jour- nalists of political candidates and public officials. She said that after press conferences, members of the media talk to one another and casually agree on the most important story. “It’s just mind-boggling. They hardly ever step out of line.” Stoltz called it the “master-narrative.”
Moran, also a professor at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism, said that journalists are “letting candidates dictate what comes across” when candidates refuse to take questions and restrict access.
Graham, former business reporter for the Des Moines Register, said the economy is “one of the most under-covered stories,” but during the Iowa primaries the journalists‚ “pack mentality” focused only on “who’s up and down.”
Elias stressed the inexperience of young reporters covering campaigns, noting that most narrowly focus on “the question of the day.”
Press Club and NLGJA/LA member Chris Lisotta organized the panel, which brought approximately 50 people to the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center ’s Renberg Theatre in Hollywood.
(On April 12, Lisotta will moderate a panel sponsored by the LA Weekly and City of West Hollywood on same-sex marriage. Info is at http://www.weho.org/news/ index.cfm?fuseaction=story&ID=1015&mo de=Web.)
