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.”
RELATED: Tampa drag queen event canceled after DeSantis signs new law protecting children
“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.”
The Los Angeles Dodgers have decided to honor the blasphemous anti-Catholic drag group, the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence”, with a Community Hero Award on June 16, the Feast of the Sacred Heart.
This blatant contempt for the Catholic faith cannot go unchallenged.
SIGN: The LA Dodgers must revoke their plan to honor these ‘transgender nuns’
The Major League Baseball franchise said it had decided to honor the group — which engages in deliberately offensive sexualized burlesque mockeries of Catholicism — after initially canceling plans to do so when the public expressed outrage.
“After much thoughtful feedback from our diverse communities, honest conversations within the Los Angeles Dodgers organization and generous discussions with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Los Angeles Dodgers would like to offer our sincerest apologies to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, members of the LGBTQ+ community and their friends and families,” the statement read.
In one move, you managed to turn off conservatives and slap Christians in the face with disgusting drag nuns. What a disgrace you’ve become. Was recently at a game. Won’t be coming back.
— Courrielche⚡️ (@courrielche) May 23, 2023
The baseball team said it will ask the sacrilegious group “to take their place on the field at our 10th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night on June 16th.”
SIGN: The LA Dodgers must NOT allow this mockery to take place
The Dodgers’ Monday announcement comes after it previously agreed to dis-invite the group after outrage by Catholics and other conservatives.
Among others, Catholic Vote and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida vocally objected to the decision to honor the so-called “sisters.”
“Given the strong feelings of people who have been offended by the sisters’ inclusion in our evening, and in an effort not to distract from the great benefits that we have seen over the years of Pride Night, we are deciding to remove them from this year’s group of honorees,” the team said in a since-deleted May 17 announcement.
San Francisco’s Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone had previously thanked the Dodgers for their decision to roll back the invitation.
In its Monday statement, after apologizing for temporarily dis-inviting the anti-Catholic hate group, the Dodgers promised to “work with our LGBTQ+ partners to better educate ourselves, find ways to strengthen the ties that bind and use our platform to support all our fans who make diversity part of the Dodgers family.”
Make your voice heard NOW, before this blasphemy takes center stage.
SIGN: The LA Dodgers must not honor anti-Catholic, anti-Christian drag ‘nuns’
Conservatives responded on social media by slamming the baseball team for caving.
“Yes, it is vital that the national pastime honor and support those who mock religion and decency,” reacted Daily Wire co-founder and podcaster Ben Shapiro.
“The Gay Mafia will always extract their payment for ‘protection,’ said Crisis magazine editor-in-chief Eric Sammons.
Some social media users hinted that the team should face the same backlash as beer company Bud Light, which is continuing to endure a massive boycott after its decision to honor transgender-identifying TikTok activist Dylan Mulvaney.
But the Dodgers weren’t always woke and divorced from traditional religious practice.
Former Dodgers great Sandy Koufax, a left-handed pitcher who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in fame in 1972, famously refused to pitch during Game 1 of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, the most important holy day in the Jewish calendar. He previously opted out of games that landed on Passover and Rosh Hashanah.
And Koufax wasn’t alone in living an active faith. Legendary announcer Vin Scully, the “Voice of the Dodgers” for 67 years, was a staunch Catholic. Scully, who passed away last year at age 94, was described by Catholic News Agency’s Jonah McKeown as “a devout Catholic who found in his faith a source of joy and comfort and sought to share it with others through personal kindness and philanthropy.”
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, Scully was devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and even narrated a two-CD audio recording of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 2016.
SIGN & SHARE our urgent petition today – do not be silent as the Catholic faith is attacked!
“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.’”
RELATED: Has Communism come to America under Joe Biden?
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.