Media bias in Houston

The divide between popular attitudes and media platitudes was evident again on Tuesday when Houstonians decisively voted down an “Equal Rights Ordinance” pushed not only by LGBT lobbyists but major corporate interests. Houston’s mass media had strongly supported the ordinance, and Houston Baptist University president Robert Sloan had a telling experience about the limits of press fairness.

Basic story: Sloan submitted to the Houston Chronicle a column opposing the ordinance. Chronicle editors knocked out some of Sloan’s words—such as Sloan’s contention that gender redefinition is “unknown historically”—but also told him he had to insert some of theirs, such as a clause about LGBT lobbyists working “to advance the causes of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Houstonians.”

It’s one thing to trim a column—that’s what editors do—but it’s something else to require a writer to include the slogans of what he’s opposing. Here’s another example: In place of Sloan’s statement that the ordinance would offer people the chance “to redefine their gender based upon internal, perhaps momentary, psychological impulses,” the editors told Sloan to say it will “offer protected status to transgender residents of our city.”

That degree of editing is extraordinary. I emailed Chronicle Outlook editor Veronica Flores-Paniagua and asked if I had misread the evidence. She responded, “I want to be sure you have the full context of the phone and email exchanges I had with Dr. Sloan and his VP for University Relations, Sharon Saunders, concerning the op-ed submission.”

Yes, the full context. I eagerly read on: “As an editor, you would understand that people are free to submit anything. We receive scores of op-ed submissions weekly and we must make decisions about which ones will make it to publication. No one is guaranteed publication. We agreed to review Dr. Sloan’s piece, and no more.” Flores-Paniagua concluded, “[A]s an editor, I often make suggested edits, as I did in this case.”

True enough: Editors often have to be abominable No-men, but an editor normally has the goal of strengthening a column, not weakening it. Sloan withdrew his column rather than make the changes. Houstonians still gained enough information from other sources to smell a rat, and voted accordingly. But press claims of fair play took another hit.