I edited out a portion of this comment. -Adam Belz

I fully understand that print news is on a tight deadline, and that mistakes happen, including the use of the word “known” to describe someone’s sexual orientation.

But you can’t be serious in suggesting that “known” as used in your story has anything but a negative connotation. I have never heard someone called “a known genius,” or “a known humanitarian.” The typical usage is well demonstrated in today’s slate.com article about the recent Holocaust museum shooting, titled “Known Supremacist Attacks Holocaust Museum.”

Your explanation that this usage “show[s] that it is not the reporter, Adam Belz, who is claiming this is a fact” can’t be right. I would not expect the Gazette to print “non-facts” or “rumors” without identifying them as such. “Known” is a cop-out, and I suspect that you do know that.

I have to say, too, that it’s not fair to call me or the other people who criticized your language “boo-birds.” I’m an ardent supporter of print news, have subscribed to the Gazette since I arrived in Cedar Rapids, and will continue to do so. News happens fast, and I appreciate it being reported to me every day by the Gazette. I expect mistakes to happen in the process. Identifying them, civilly and fairly, is not being a boo-bird. Speaking out when something is unfair or wrong is an important exercise of the same free speech right that enables the Gazette to bring me the news in the first place.

If the police haven’t made implications about her sexual preference, then why did you?

It appears to? I’m no detective, but my first thought, and many others is that HE was a worthless trailor trash asshole who enjoyed abusing his wife and like most other small town losers……owned a gun. Maybe a domestic abuse occured and maybe Amy got into the middle
of it. I didn’t see you write anything about that. No, you write about her sexual preference.

Look Adam, I want honest and accurate reporting. Just like the family does. So why does your story slant to the sexuality side of her life? If and when there is evidence of sexual activity between these people, then you can report
on it. Until then, she is innocent until proven guilty. She is an innocent victim until proven otherwise.

Report the facts, not your ratings driven ideals. She was murdered in cold blood. And her friends and family are in shock. Maybe you should report on this loser and expose him for what he is.

Writing articles that offend a greiving family is in poor taste.
What if it was your wife or daughter? Would you have worded it the same way? No, you wouldn’t have.

Edit it or apologize, I won’t ask again.

And yes, apparently you guys can write whatever you want (unedited) and our replies ARE edited. Feel free to post this on your blog. Let the people decide.

I think the thing that most of us — including fellow known heterosexual or known lesbian/gay journalists — have objected to is something that neither Mr. Muller nor you have written about yet, and it’s this: the marking of only one person’s sexual orientation. It’s not the same as, but similar to, mentioning the race only of a person of color in a story that includes both white people and people of color.

I understand what you were implying and why, and I understand that there are what you and Mr. Muller called rumors about the relationships of the adults in the story. My point is that Gephart’s sexual orientation is no more pertinent to the story than is the shooter’s sexual orientation. (And both may be.)

Is the shooter “a known heterosexual,” and if so, why not call him that in this story? The Gazette should not treat it as a weirder, more marked or different status for Gephart than for the shooter. It’s a sexual orientation. We each have one.

In addition, I think, Gephart’s sexual ORIENTATION is not “relevant in her killing.” What seems to have been relevant is several people’s sexual BEHAVIOR, which I know you’re trying to get at and wil probably write about eventually.

You’re probably working on a follow-up story right now, and I wish you luck with it. I have enjoyed, if that’s the right word, looking at your flood follow-up stories; painful and important. Good luck, and thanks for reading, and now go have a beer or two on me after a hard day,

Suzi Steffen
Eugene Weekly
Eugene, OR

Sorry, but there was and still is way more wrong with that piece than just the word “known.” This boo-bird is calling you out on poor reporting, not just word choice.