Dildo Flub on Poynter's Worst Error List
(Nevius, in gray jacket, laughing with colleagues in 2006. Credit: John Curley.)
Among the many tired-ass snarky conservative columnists at the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle, who I believe outnumber actual qualified journalists on staff, is C.W. "Chuck" Nevius. In many political and social circles he's commonly referred to as B.S. Nevius because of all the demonizing tripe and hype he peddles in his pieces.
A watchdog at the widely-respected and independent media resource Poynter Institute, Craig Silverman, has cited an August 16th Nevius hit-piece on drag artistes in the Castro that mentioned this (unsourced) bit of fiction on his Best and Worst Media Errors of 2012:
It should also be said that some of the gay groups that have been using the hall have gone way over the top. Several years ago the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence featured a drag queen known as Peaches Christ, who waved a crucifix shaped like a dildo. Even longtime gay parishioners thought that was too much.
Nevius simply invented that incident and the unnamed gay parishioners, further driving down the Chronicle's ever-diminishing credibility among reality-based readers.Within hours of the b.s. appearing, the paper posted this correction to their site:
C.W. Nevius' column about Most Holy Redeemer banning drag queen performers incorrectly stated that entertainer Peaches Christ appeared at an event at the church's hall with a dildo shaped like a crucifix. He did not appear at the event, nor does he use the prop.
Good enough on the surface, but Nevius and his editors failed to address the matter of the fabricated parishioners. The entire sorry episode makes one wonder what else Nevius has fabricated and reported as fact. Congratulations, B.S. and thanks for the chuckles!
I'm disgusted, but not surprised. Nevius once interviewed me on the phone about my thoughts on urban nudity. When asked about the effects of nudity on children, I told him that studies have shown that children are not harmed by seeing nudity. But when Nevius mentioned me in his column, he twisted what I said to make me sound like a child-hating sociopath.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, I would never speak to this guy again -- he's a liar and a journalistic fraud.