Unbalanced TV report distorts reality of gay teens

By Michael Medved

"A lie will travel half way around the world before the truth pulls on its boots," Mark Twain observed some hundred years ago. In our own era of instant communication, it's even more difficult to correct the authoritative distortions so frequently promulgated by mass media.

That's particularly true whenever these reports claim noble intentions on behalf of some oppressed minority, as with a wildly irresponsible May 30 story featured on ABC's Good Morning America. The news hook involved a much-heralded "new study" on brutal bullying of gay teenagers across the USA that suggested 2 million kids now suffer such persecution and require immediate federal protection. The shocking figure, mentioned in ads for the broadcast and cited four separate times during the report, came from the organization Human Rights Watch, which "interviewed more than 250 students and teachers."

Despite the limited reach of such research, Widney Brown of Human Rights Watch never hesitated in jumping to sweeping conclusions. "You've got 2 million kids dealing with this," she authoritatively declared.

At the conclusion of the story, anchorwoman Elizabeth Vargas expressed amazement at the shocking scope of this hidden crisis. "Two million children in the nation are affected by this kind of gay bullying?" she asked glamorous reporter Claire Shipman.

"Well, that's what they estimate," Shipman responded. "They look at the population and they think that is the number of potentially gay students out there and these students, they believe, are almost all having some manner of these problems."

In other words, the definitive number cited repeatedly on the air is nothing more than a guess. In response to my calls, Human Rights Watch forwarded material attempting to justify its attention-getting number. It notes Census Bureau numbers showing 45 million children aged five to 17, and claims that "most researchers believe that between 5% and 6% of youth" count as gay or bisexual. Significantly, in a report with nearly 50 footnotes, the "5% or 6%" figure remains unattributed — and some of the most comprehensive sex surveys (such as a huge University of Chicago study in 1994) show only 3% of adults identifying as gay.

But even if you accept 5% as an accurate reflection of the adult gay population, no "researcher" would ever claim that 5% of 5-year-olds could be identified as self-consciously, recognizably gay. To reach the total of 2 million school-age victims of anti-gay persecution, homosexual identity must prove just as common among those below 10 as those above age 16.

Yet all literature about coming to terms with homosexual orientation suggests a gradual process, often occurring during young adulthood or later. Does anyone seriously suggest that 5% of America's 5-year-olds — who have hardly begun to sort out sexual inclinations and experiences — would be identifiable to their classmates, or even to themselves, as gay?

Of course, even if it's only a hundred thousand brutalized gay kids instead of 2 million, it's still too many; no child deserves the cruel treatment so eloquently described in the report. Yet the number clearly seemed important to ABC TV, since that figure served as the only newsy, statistical evidence presented in a story otherwise filled with individual anecdotes and personal impressions.

Almost inevitably, the figure of "2 million suffering gay kids" will become a staple of public discourse — like other wildly exaggerated claims concerning the number of deaths from anorexia, or figures for homelessness in the 1980s, or death tolls for slaves in the Middle Passage. Such numbers attempt to quantify undeniable human suffering, so questioning their accuracy or origin seems heartless.

There's also a natural tendency for broadcast journalists to amplify all problems and disasters in order to grab the attention of a jaded audience. Huge but unreliable numbers make any story seem more desperate, dramatic and newsworthy.

TV network journalists can't stop activists from marking their dubious claims, but they shouldn't recycle them as unchallenged truth. The most disturbing aspect of the ABC report involved its appalling lack of balance. The network showed taped interviews with teenage victims, sympathetic educators, and the indignant representative of Human Rights Watch, but never presented a skeptical perspective or any voice to question the figure of 2 million victimized kids.

If nothing else, the involvement of Human Rights Watch deserved more discussion. Founded in 1978 to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki Accords, this worthy organization generally focuses on horrendous, even genocidal abuses of life and human dignity, in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and other world hotspots.

The new report implicitly compares the teasing of American students with butchery by some of the world's most vicious regimes — thereby trivializing the evil of those nightmare societies.

The flashy figure of 2 million targets of homophobic bullying may create a sense of urgency and crisis, but it rests on the shaky assumption that all gay kids — again, including 5-year-olds — face vicious oppression. This denies the courageous reality of openly homosexual teenagers who rise above stereotyping, to win election as student body presidents, to achieve stardom on sports teams, or earn major scholarships. Wouldn't the presentation of such triumphant stories have added another sort of crucial balance to the story?

Instead, ABC went along with the nonsensical notion that every student conceivably classified as gay must automatically be classified as victim. Such negative, self-pitying thinking adds little to the cause of tolerance. Once upon a time, leaders of oppressed minorities — blacks, Jews, Irish, Asian, you name it — understood the value of highlighting examples of those who transcended difficult circumstances and overcame prejudice.

The new desire to compete in terms of group victimization rather than group achievement represents one of the most misguided aspects of political correctness.

Among gay youngsters who endure intimidation, you will find examples of extraordinary creativity, even popularity. These more inspiring instances may not add up to 2 million kids, but surely they deserve the attention.

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Film critic Michael Medved hosts a nationally syndicated radio show about the intersection of politics and pop culture. He is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.