While five words from Anderson Cooper– “The fact is, I’m gay” — have made the headlines the last 24 hours, it’s actually the report , which sparked the e-mail exchange between the CNN Anchor and  Blogger Andrew Sullivan, that warrants a closer look.

I’m glad I picked up a copy of Entertainment Weekly last week when I saw the pictures of eight celebrities and the headline “The New Art of Coming Out.”

The Article That Started It All

The lead writer, Mark Harris, did an excellent job of explaining what goes into a celebrity’s decision to “go public” about his/her sexual orientation.

Harris and three other reporters, Melissa Maerz, Muzhat Naaren and Adam Vary, provided example after example of the struggle that some film and television stars have had with the decision, even to the point of not wanting to provide a comment for this latest story.

Until this week, I, personally, was not familiar with the term “glass closet”– a term for when one’s homosexuality was common knowledge in the entertainment industry, in the press and among gay people, but an individual never says anything specific about it.

The article places this entire discussion into some historical context, while also drawing out a key point– pop culture’s ability to shift the national mood. The timeline that appears in the print edition is awesome.

My intent in purchasing the magazine was to have students in my Race, Gender and Media class read it as part of our unit on “Sexual orientation and media.”       But, given the insights it provides, the story and the timeline that accompanies it could be a teaching tool for any journalist wanting to know how to cover gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender sources.

It goes beyond just asking “is the source’s sexual orientation relevant for the story?”

Courtesy:CNN

Anderson Cooper’s e-mail

Reaction to last week’s  Entertainment Weekly cover story and its mention of a New York Times television critic’s decision to challenge Cooper on not talking about his love life in launching his syndicated talk show was the reason Sullivan e-mailed the CNN anchor in the first place.

It’s interesting to note the New York Times critic wasn’t the only writer to reference Cooper’s lack of disclosure.  Entertainment Weekly writer Tim Stack also made reference to the same lack of disclosure (apparently now known as “the glass closet”).

“There’s no clarity, however, on whether Cooper will address the one topic many people want him to talk about: his personal life,” Stack wrote in the article published last August.

As a result of this latest special report, Cooper has addressed it directly, but also made a statement in his e-mail to Andrew Sullivan that has been under-reported

“I’ve always believed that who a reporter votes for, what religion they are, who they love, should not be something they have to discuss publicly,” Cooper wrote. “As long as a journalist shows fairness and honesty in his or her work, their private life shouldn’t matter.”

I happen to agree with that point.  But, there’s more to the e-mail that is equally important

“In a perfect world, I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted,” Cooper also wrote in the same e-mail.   “I’m not an activist, but I am a human being and I don’t give that up by being a journalist.”

In many ways, like President Obama’s position on same-sex marriage was evolving,  Anderson Cooper’s position on journalists’ and public figures’ disclosure of their sexual orientation was ALSO evolving.

Thanks to Entertainment Weekly’s reporting  and Andrew Sullivan’s blog post,  we see the impact of this evolution and have learned some lessons on how to reflect this aspect diverse world in which we live.

George L. Daniels is an associate professor of journalism at The University of Alabama and past chairman of the SPJ Diversity Committee.  He’s currently a member of the SPJ National Board of Directors.

I’m wondering how Anderson Cooper of CNN is feeling today. Now that he has told The Daily Beast that he is gay.  Is it a pressure off his back?  I was a television reporter 27 years, and I’ve always believed in being an open book.

Why? Because I expect it from people I interview. I’m a public figure who has chosen to be on television. I don’t want people to think I have something to hide; if I put out that message, they could hide stuff from me.

I always thought Cooper didn’t admit he was gay, because he was afraid his bosses wouldn’t like it and his viewers wouldn’t be too keen about it either.  And when I kept hearing that he wanted to “keep part of his life private” I thought there is no such thing when you’re on television, especially in TV news.

Thank you Anderson Cooper for just putting it out there in The Daily Beast “The Fact Is, I’m Gay.” He says he came out because he didn’t want people to think he was ashamed or hiding something.  I hate to admit it, but that’s what I thought, that he was hiding something.

Anderson Cooper today is showing the public, especially those afraid to come out; that it’s OK to say proudly “I’m gay.”  He’s also showing others in the news business, that yes, journalists can be gay and fair at the same time.

Is he any different today than he was yesterday? No. Can he still cover gay issues fairly? Of course!  In the end, he’s a journalist; a man trusted for  his honesty and hard work.

Rebecca Aguilar is an Emmy award winning freelance reporter based in Dallas, TX.  She’s also the vice chair of SPJ Diversity Committee, a board member with National Association of Hispanic Journalists and SPJ-Fort Worth Chapter.

On the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., CNN, aired the latest installment in its ongoing look at “Kids and Race.”

The report that aired tonight on Anderson Cooper 360 was just a part of a much larger presentation on the topic of race that can be found on the AC360 web site.

There, you can download a full 17-page report of the study with details and citations to the other research on this topic.

Academics like myself will want to look deeper at the methods used in this latest project.

But for the general public, which has seen a national conversation about race re-ignited in the recent Trayvon Martin case, tonight’s CNN report re-focuses our attention on where we are when it comes to teaching our youngest residents about interacting with those from other racial backgrounds.

Courtesy: CNN

In this latest study lead by Psychologist Melanie Killen, six-year-olds were shown an ambiguous picture of children of different races ‘(see above) and then asked to describe what was happening.

The black first-graders had far more positive interpretations of the images than white first-graders.

Killen drew some conclusions about the role of parents.

“African American parents … are very early on preparing their children for the world of diversity and also for the world of potential discrimination,” said Killen. “They’re certainly talking about issues of race and what it means to be a different race and when it matters and when it doesn’t matter.”

Also in the study, 13-year-olds were shown a different ambiguous picture, prompting some of the students to recount their own experiences of being bullied because of their racial background.

Courtesy: CNN

The study found that whether or not the school was majority white, majority black or racially diverse makes a difference.  This was especially true with white children.

Tonight’s extended report included soundbites from the students’ reaction at several grade levels.

A Two-Year Follow-up

In 2010, Cooper was the lead anchor presenting the results of  another CNN-commissioned  study that showed black and white children are biased toward lighter skin.

The test then was aimed at re-creating the landmark Doll Test from 1940s.

Those tests, conducted by psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, were designed to measure how segregation affected African-American children.

Is It Still Just Black and White?

I couldn’t help but wonder where are the Hispanic kids in this discussion?  Most of the clips in tonight’s study were depicting the same black vs. white discussion.

That black vs. white discussion was what was on the minds of Americans who were alive on April 4, 1968 when shots rang out at  Memphis’ Lorraine Motel and the nation’s most famous civil rights leader lay in a pool of blood.

But, I wonder what would Dr. King say today if he heard the results of this CNN study almost a half-century after his famous “I Have a Dream Speech” in August 1963.

Yes, black vs. white is still a relevant discussion in 2012.

But, so is the discussion about what Hispanics, now our nation’s largest racial minority group, encounter, especially given the recent debates over immigration reform.

We should applaud CNN for starting a discussion, but also ask that the producers in future installments in the “Kids and Race” series to  broaden the dialogue beyond just black-and-white.

George L. Daniels, Ph.D.  is an associate professor of journalism at the The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and member of the SPJ National Board of Directors.  He is a past chair of the SPJ Diversity Committee. Read more of his thoughts at bamaproducer.wordpress.com