Petrelis Files

Fox News Reporter: I'm Straight (Condi Rice-related)

The story about Condi Rice's somewhat goofy interview with Fox News reporter James Rosen, which I first noted last month, has legs and continues to interest gossip writers.

Over the weekend the Minneapolis Star Tribune summarized the tale thus far and got Fox News anchor Lauren Green to not only openly declare her heterosexual orientation, she also said gay equals cool.

Excerpts from the article:

>"Fox & Friends" anchor Lauren Green has breaking news for gossip hounds speculating on her love life: Females need not apply.

>"It's hard enough to find a date," said Green, responding to media and bloggers' attempts to link her romantically to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "You know what I mean? I don't need that!" Green said.

>Gay is cool, but Green told her hometown gossip columnist, "I am very straight. All Christian men, single and over 35, can apply."

Oh, those militant straights! Always rubbing our queer noses in their private lives and using the media to improve their love lives!



>The trouble started innocently enough when Green sat with Fox's State Department correspondent James Rosen at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in the spring. The conversation turned to Green's avocation as a concert pianist and her CD "Classic Beauty." Rice also is a pianist. Rosen seemed bemused to realize he knew two beautiful, high-profile black women who are concert pianists. Green said she told Rosen it would be "really cool to play a duet" with Rice. She sent Rosen a CD (laurengreencd.com) and didn't think about it again until he called "about a week ago and said, Haven't had time to give it to her, but we're going down to Haiti. I'll give it to her then."

>He did just that at the end of an interview. It didn't air, but there was a transcript. The transcript, as printed by two sources I've seen, has a peculiar vibe: "I close with a gift for you. You met this person once, I believe, but you really ought to know each other because this woman is. ... I think you'll have an interest in knowing her." Rosen eventually notes that the woman is a Fox anchor, black, brilliant, beautiful, "single and a concert pianist in her spare time."

Yes, that peculiar vibe surrounds the interview, and I'd like to know if the Star Tribune gossip writer is aware that one of the sources for the transcript is a little thing called the State Department?



>It's nothing, and yet this is how gossip gets started. If bloggers, radarmagazine.com, and NY Daily News gossips Rush & Molloy are interested, here is what Green has to say:

>"We could be really good role models for young girls and yet that is what you focus on. Isn't that the most insidious thing? If there wasn't anything wrong with being gay, why go there? ... And it's not even about being gay or not being gay. It's about GETTING THE STORY RIGHT. Why didn't they try -- because if they had asked me they wouldn't have had a story. Are you trying to take an off-handed dig at Fox for some reason or me?"

If "it's nothing" than why is it of interest to the Star Tribune, and why is a gossip columnist kvetching about how gossip gets started, when it keep the columnist working?



>Green is puzzled that Rush and Molloy asked a Fox network staffer about her sexual orientation and printed an "I don't know" response. They didn't ask Green herself. "There's no message on my phone, no message at Fox, no message to my agent, no note in my e-mail. These people could have found Arafat in Turkey when he was alive, and they can't find me here."

>NY Daily News gossip columnist Joanna Molloy said, "When I call Fox, the operators do not put me through even though I identify myself as a reporter. ... I can forward you my e-mail to various Fox spokespeople asking, Is Lauren Green gay; if so, has she been public about it?"

Since the Star Tribune is into calling newsmakers and asking about their sexual orientations, maybe someone from the paper can call Rice and ask about hers.



>Then, as if getting heady from being on the High Road, Molloy claimed, "I don't out people who don't want to be outed."

>Then what were you doing?

Um, I think she was writing an interesting newsworthy item for the NY Daily News!