Bliss and bias
Chron bars wedded lesbian staffers from covering same-sex marriage.

By Rachel Brahinsky

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE city hall reporter Rachel Gordon was yanked from covering same-sex marriage – the biggest story in her beat – according to a March 12 internal memo from Chron executive editor Phil Bronstein.

The reason: Gordon married her partner, Chron photographer Liz Mangelsdorf, just days before San Francisco's same-gender marriages were halted by the California Supreme Court. Both Gordon and Mangelsdorf have been barred from covering the marriage debate.

Editors involved in the decision agreed that "Chronicle journalists directly and personally involved in a major news story – one in whose outcome they also have a personal stake – should not also cover that story," the memo says.

It's standard for newspapers to require reporters to steer clear of conflicts of interest with the beats they cover. And some have said Gordon and Mangelsdorf's action could be compared with an African American reporter covering the civil rights movement in the 1950s while participating in sit-ins and civil rights marches.

But Steven Petrow, president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, said the couple wasn't engaging in activism by marrying. "I think that Rachel is a reporter known for her integrity. The fact that she's a lesbian and the fact that she got married – which was a legally sanctioned act in San Francisco last week – doesn't change that.... And doesn't a straight reporter also have a stake in the story?"

NLGJA executive director Pamela Strother added that if it's a political act to marry when gay marriage is legal, "then being LGBT in itself would be a political act. We would challenge news managers not to follow the old paradigm."

Petrow acknowledged that the Chron bosses are wending their way through "uncharted territory" but contended that "they would have been better off issuing a statement in the paper and starting a public discussion."

We couldn't reach Gordon, Mangelsdorf, or Bronstein for comment by press time.

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