No single media outlet better embodies the flaws of hyper-woke LGBT media than PinkNews, the U.K.-based website that claims to be the world’s largest voice in “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender news.” But PinkNews is imploding under the weight of an ironic and deeply hypocritical scandal.
Over the years, PinkNews has become known for its brilliant investigative coverage, such as one piece titled, “London aquarium’s gender-neutral penguin just predicted Jeremy Corbyn will win the election.” He did not. It has also received pushback for its interesting coverage choices, such as one article glorifying creepy “age gap” relationships where middle-aged men pay barely legal teenagers for sex. But PinkNews is perhaps most known for its tendency to blast and condemn “problematic” people and “bigots,” from J.K. Rowling to, well, me. So, it’s interesting to see that the left-wing media outlet may have been projecting all along.
A new BBC investigation into the company alleges that the two gay men who run it are quite “problematic” themselves. The BBC spoke to 30 current and former PinkNews employees, including some on the record, who described a toxic and alcohol-fueled culture inside the workplace. There are also specific allegations that the two leaders, Anthony James and Benjamin Cohen, “behaved inappropriately towards younger male employees.”
As the BBC reports, “Several former staff members told the BBC they saw Anthony James, a director at the U.K.-based company and husband of its founder, kissing and touching a junior colleague who they say appeared too drunk to consent.”
One ex-employee, Stephan Kyriacou, specifically alleges that Cohen slapped him on the backside in a workplace environment. But it’s not just #MeToo issues where the bosses at PinkNews are looking like hypocrites. They’re also facing accusations of workplace misogyny and inappropriate behavior toward young female staffers, such as allegedly asking them to serve as their surrogates — something that, no matter how one feels about the ethics of surrogacy, is completely inappropriate in a workplace environment and when there is such a power imbalance in the relationship.
That’s right: The leaders behind perhaps the most woke publication on Earth are actually quite “problematic” themselves, at least, if these allegations are true. And PinkNews has typically taken the “blindly believe victims” approach, after all. But there’s more to the story here than just the delicious irony of seeing toxic woke scolds impaled on their own faux moral righteousness.
It’s actually a perfect example of a phenomenon psychologists call “reaction formation.” What’s that? Well, as Psychology Today notes, William Shakespeare touched on this phenomenon when he wrote, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Basically, it’s the idea that people often project their own feelings and insecurities by acting out in the most extreme opposite way imaginable.
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It may well be that the creeps behind PinkNews have spent so many years smearing others as “problematic” because they knew that they themselves were deeply morally suspect — and hoped that their accusations would distract onlookers and even scare people from coming forward. After all, you wouldn’t want to accuse gay media icons of bad behavior and get labeled homophobic!
Times have changed. Even a few years ago, the BBC doing this kind of critical reporting of a beloved identity-obsessed activist organization would have been unimaginable. But the tide seems to be turning at last. And it’s time to give all the most toxic voices in media and culture this kind of scrutiny — and see what bad behavior they may have been trying to cover up all this time.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
