Daily Beast removes gay-baiting Olympics article after complaints that it could out athletes
By Josh Lee
The Daily Beast’s gay-baiting article, which came under fire for publishing details about closeted Olympic athletes that could potentially out them – as well as it’s salacious tone which many believed was mocking gay and bi men, has been removed.
Before it was removed, Daily Beast editor John Avlon added an Editors’ Note at the end of the article, claiming that those who complained had “interpreted the piece differently”, and insisted that it was never the reporter’s “intention” to put publish identifiable information. He also seemed to justify publishing male athletes stats and nationalities by saying that “some of the profiles described were of straight women”, ignoring the additional risk that closeted men run using dating apps, compared to their straight counterparts.
Since the article has been taken down entirely, and replaced with the following.
“As shared in our editor’s note earlier today, we initially thought swift removal of any identifying characteristics and better clarification of our intent was the adequate way to address this.
Our initial reaction was that the entire removal of the piece was not necessary. We were wrong. We’re sorry. And we apologize to the athletes who may have been inadvertently compromised by our story.
Today we did not uphold a deep set of The Daily Beast’s values. These values—which include standing up to bullies and bigots, and specifically being a proudly, steadfastly supportive voice for LGBT people all over the world—are core to our commitment to journalism and to our commitment to serving our readers.
As a newsroom, we succeed together and we fail together, and this was a failure on The Daily Beast as a whole, not a single individual. The article was not intended to do harm or degrade members of the LGBT community, but intent doesn’t matter, impact does.
Our hope is that removing an article that is in conflict with both our values and what we aspire to as journalists will demonstrate how seriously we take our error. We were wrong. We will do better.”
The journalist who wrote the article, Nico Hines, is yet to comment.