If you were wondering about CNN's objectivity on liberal issues like
gay rights, the lines became a whole lot more blurred recently as anchor
Don Lemon received a "Visibility" award [1] from the pro-gay Human Rights Campaign at its North Carolina gala, where Obama's HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius spoke and stumped [2] for the President's re-election.
Then on Friday, Sebelius addressed middle school students at an anti-bullying event [3]
where Lemon served as the moderator of an anti-bullying panel. His
appearances at events with an Obama cabinet member blur the lines of
objectivity and his receiving an award from a gay-rights organization
makes his liberal bias all the clearer.
At
the anti-bullying event, Lemon asked Sebelius about combating bullying.
She responded that kids should tell bullies they're being jerks, after a
film had been presented telling the audience of kids not to call others
jerks.
And at the HRC gala, Lemon quoted [4]
Martin Luther King in his acceptance speech that "There comes a time
where silence equals betrayal," in reference to his own coming out as
openly-gay. Could he also have been referring to his colleague Anderson
Cooper's widely-discussed silence on his own personal lifestyle?
Lemon's words echo his statement from last May, where he professed his hope to "change minds [5]"
by coming out – as in, by coming out as openly-gay and not remaining
silent, he hopes that will change people's minds on the issue. Contrast
that with his telling Joy Behar that he would remain "objective [6]" as a reporter.
And who was one of the corporate sponsors [2] for the HRC gala? Time Warner, Inc., which owns CNN.
-- Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center