GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan (LifeSiteNews) — America’s biggest media conglomerate has reportedly opened an investigation into a local news outlet after an executive issued a memo encouraging balanced reporting of divisive LGBT topics during so-called “pride” month.
Nexstar Media, which operates the largest number of local TV stations in the U.S., opened an investigation into Grand Rapids, Michigan, NBC affiliate WOOD TV8 after an assistant news director told journalists to report on “both sides” of LGBT issues to better serve their audience, CNN Business reported on Friday.
“We know that West Michigan is a Conservative area in many ways,” WOOD TV8 assistant news director Amy Fox wrote in a memo entitled “Pride Month,” according to TheDesk.net.
“We need to recognize that some stories related to LGBTQ issues are going to be controversial and polarizing in our community,” Fox said. “While you personally may not agree with a certain position, people are entitled to their opinions, and they are our viewers.”
As LifeSiteNews has extensively reported, conservatives have begun to actively push back against LGBT ideology in the public square by successfully boycotting woke corporations like Bud Light and Target, as well as inspiring legislation to pull sexually explicit and pro-LGBT curricula and materials from classrooms and school libraries, protect women’s sports and spaces, and ban sexualized performances targeting children. Many LGBT activists have histrionically responded by framing criticism of radical sexual ideology, particularly transgenderism, as “dangerous” and “genocidal.”
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“We should not [cover] every Pride event that we learn about,” Fox said in the memo. “We need to do some work to discern the newsworthy-ness of the event. If we are covering Pride events, we need to consider how to make the story balanced and get both sides of the issue.”
But the encouragement for journalists to take a balanced approach to LGBT news reporting sparked outrage within the newsroom and triggered an investigation for cutting against “Nexstar’s values.”
“We’re looking into the situation at WOOD TV8, as the communication regarding the station’s coverage of PRIDE month activities in the area is not consistent with Nexstar’s values, the way we cover the news, or the respect we have for our viewers,” Nexstar said in a statement to CNN.
The company said it will “take appropriate action as necessary to address this situation,” adding that the company “apologize[s] for offending members of the LGBTQ community and WOOD TV8’s viewers.”
Openly homosexual former news anchor and reporter Jeffrey Varner, who previously worked for a variety of local media outlets across the country, argued on Twitter that Fox’s memo had been appropriate. He said he was “shocked at the uproar and the ‘investigation.’”
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Nexstar’s statement to CNN came after several WOOD TV8 staff members publicly denounced the memo.
WOOD TV8 news anchor Michele DeSelms said that journalists had “immediately stood up to the 2 managers who wrote a memo mandating that we cover ‘the other side’ of Pride events.”
Characterizing balance in coverage of highly controversial LGBT issues as “requiring us to give equal time to hate and discrimination,” DeSelms said that the newsroom rejected the memo and “will continue to fight for our LGBTQ colleagues, family members[,] friends and the community.”
WOOD TV8 reporter Taylor Morris also tweeted out that her “newsroom is not following that memo.”
“This memo was met with immediate pushback from our newsroom,” WOOD TV8 executive producer Luke Stier said Thursday on Twitter. “The guidance is not being followed.”
Stier also indicated that action had already been taken against those responsible for the memo urging balance in reporting.
“The only two people involved in its creation have been removed from any discussions surrounding @WOODTV Pride coverage as our corporation conducts a thorough investigation,” he wrote.
The outlet has subsequently produced a video report celebrating the 35th annual Grand Rapids Pride Festival and criticizing recent proposed state laws to protect women’s bathrooms and sports teams as legislation “targeting the trans community.”
Nexstar’s reaction to WOOD TV8’s call for balanced reporting comes as Americans have long recognized that so-called “mainstream” media outlets have a distinct left-wing bias.