GLAAD Issues Call for Action on Associated Press

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has issued a call for action to email the Associated Press over their lack of coverage and mischarcterization of their anti-gay hate crimes media coverage.

"The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is encouraging community members to call upon The Associated Press to provide greater depth and context when covering incidents of bullying and violence directed at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.

The AP’s latest story on Lawrence King, a 15-year-old student from Oxnard, Calif., who died after he was shot by a classmate in what prosecutors have identified as a premeditated hate crime based on King’s perceived sexual orientation, unfairly assigns blame to King. The story suggests that the openly gay student’s flirting may have provoked the shooting.

“If King had flirted with the other boy, ‘that can be very threatening to someone's ego and their sense of identity,’” said Jaana Juvonen, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles."

The Associated Press should be condemning these crimes and reporting them accurately and not finding jsutifications for the anti-gay killers or blaming the victim which in this case is Lawrence King.

Please voice your concern by emailing the AP

Greg Risling
News Reporter
grisling@ap.org
213-626-1200

Brian Melley
News Editor
bmelley@ap.org
213-626-1200