Is it OK to write about Tim Cook being gay?

timcook.jpg

Photo: Brendan McDermid

Apple's Tim Cook has become a role model: brilliant, hard-working, and now running the world's sexiest consumer electronics company.

Tech writers, however, avoid talk of Mr. Cook's sexuality. When they do discuss it, it's often to declare how unworthy of discussion it is, and how doing so is discriminatory, sensationalist, or invasive. But Joe Clark isn't buying the idea that this is just about protecting Mr Cook's privacy.

When you tell us it's wrong to report on gay public figures, you are telling gays not to come out of the closet and journalists not to report the truth. … When you insist being gay couldn't possibly matter less, what you actually insist is that the subject never be brought in the first place. … [that] straight people have lives but all we have is "sexuality." Obviously it follows that reporting on gay sexuality is one step removed from pornography. Especially for gay males, the most troubling group on earth for the heterosexualist male technology journalist.

He notes one frequently-made comparison: that talking about someone's sexuality is like talking about their children. But the more you think about that comparison, the less sense it makes: a reflexive association of different 'private' things that intersect no-where else except for the fact that one may result in the existence of the other. (But not for gays!) "What you have is a life," he writes, "but all we have is a secret you want us to keep to ourselves."

Responding, Macworld editor Jason Snell's thoughts on this are clear: "He is apparently an angry, conflicted, and confused man," and then "The good news is, he doesn't appear to make any money from that crap."

The tone is what it is (Snell's publication runs the column that Clark was most critical of), but what interesting is the fact Clark's argument — that homosexuals don't need the press to protect their sexual privacy from the press — seems literally incomprehensible to those he's addressing. Disagreement is easy, given the low-profile nature of Cook's celebrity. But to not even understand what Clark's getting at makes his point for him, rather well.

Far beyond this story, sites like Gawker or Techcrunch often receive criticism from more traditional rivals on similar grounds. It goes something like this: tech blogs are too reliant on anonymous sources, too interested in prurient subjects, and too willing to play fast and loose with journalistic ethics. In the background of these criticisms, however, is an uncomfortable fact about enthusiast coverage. It's often reliant on PR gatekeepers and its own analysis for original material. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a world far-removed from the front lines where newsy scoops are found. Such journalism is far more interesting to readers, however, than laundered press releases or how many iPads some analyst thinks will ship in Q2 — even when it's "bad" journalism.

When you see an inordinate amount of insider outrage directed at muckraking, there is maybe a bit of cognitive dissonance going on about the general journalistic credibility of our beat and what the success of such material means for it. So that is another explanation for why media types may object to coverage of stuff like "executive sexuality" without it necessarily being because they have a subliminal problem with the subject matter.

Computer press so liberal it puts gays back in closet [Fawny]