Rachel Maddow: Come out gay journalists, and I did not say Mr. Cooper
“Maddow is one of the very few gay news anchors in America — well, one of the very few openly gay news anchors. Does she feel frustration towards an equally well-known news presenter who is widely assumed to be gay but has never come out? For the first time, Maddow pauses: ‘I’m sure other people in the business have considered reasons why they’re doing what they’re doing, but I do think that if you’re gay you have a responsibility to come out,’ she says carefully.”
An outtake from an interview with MSNBC‘s Rachel Maddow, 38. The accomplished, popular and proudly liberal talk show host (who manages to be both jovial and confrontational) was interviewed by Hadley Freeman, a writer for the The Guardian UK. Freeman covers Maddow’s college days, coming out gay to her parents, and how she moved from Air America Radio to her own cable TV show three years ago. Freeman also notes how Maddow has become a target of derision by some conservative media and political figures. (Guardian.co.uk)
A few news outlets have taken Freeman’s words a bit further by interpreting Rachel Maddow’s remark to be a direct challenge to CNN‘s Anderson Cooper, another well-known news reporter and talk show host who, despite intense speculation, has never publicly said that he is gay. Some sites, like Business Insider, ran headlines like, “Maddow to Cooper: You Have a Responsibility to Come Out.”
Maddow disputed that assertion and responded on her own blog by writing:
“I wasn’t asked about Anderson Cooper, I didn’t say anything about him, he literally was never discussed during the interview at all — even implicitly…. Media-about-media today notwithstanding, I did not in my interview with The Guardian say anything about or to Mr. Cooper, nor would I. Although criticism of Mr. Cooper was intimated by The Guardian and picked up everywhere — I did not make that criticism in the interview, nor did I imply it, nor is it what I believe.”
She added that gay people should come out when they feel feel it’s the right time, but if they “prey on the gay community in public,” they “should reasonably expect to be outed by other gay people.” (Maddow Blog)
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