Vice President Mike Pence has never funded gay conversion therapy, nor is he personally engaged in a “battle” with a gay figure skater.
You would think differently, however, from following USA Today columnist Christine Brennan’s coverage of the Olympics.
A tweet published Wednesday morning neatly captures the many ways in which her reporting has mischaracterized the issue:
VP Mike Pence was so stung by Adam Rippon’s criticism that he tried to set up a conversation with him. Not backing down, Rippon refused. My @usatodaysports exclusive on the bizarre battle between the VP of the United States — and a figure skater. https://t.co/N1ti0xdIXf
— Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) February 7, 2018
“VP Mike Pence was so stung by Adam Rippon’s criticism that he tried to set up a conversation with him. Not backing down, Rippon refused. My @usatodaysports exclusive on the bizarre battle between the VP of the United States — and a figure skater,” Brennan wrote.
First, it’s extremely generous to characterize Rippon’s allegation as a “criticism. It’s closer to an outright lie. The claim that Pence supports gay conversion therapy stems entirely from a passage on Pence’s (archived) 2000 congressional campaign website, which reads [emphasis added]:
Congress should support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act only after completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus. Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.
It’s from that final sentence, written in reference the Ryan White Act, a U.S. law regarding AIDS prevention in Africa, that this entire Pence/conversion narrative emerged. In other words, it’s a story that relies entirely on supposed dog-whistles, rather than financial records or anything concrete.
Secondly, Rippon refusing to meet with Pence to explain the extremely dubious conversion charge absolutely qualifies as “backing down.”
Thirdly, it’s deeply misleading to take everything mentioned in the earlier points and still characterize this story as a “battle between the VP of the United States — and a figure skater.”
If you’re holding out hope that Brennan’s reporting is more accurate than her tweeting, you may be disappointed.
Her report, titled “Openly gay figure skater Adam Rippon declined chance to speak with Vice President Pence,” still suggests that this episode involves two warring factions, as opposed to a somewhat confused-sounding vice president responding to a dubious charge from an athlete who refuses to explain or defend his position.
Brennan writes, “The spat between the vice president and the figure skater began – ” let’s stop right there, Okay? This is misleading as “spat” implies an argument with two sides against one another, not a one-sided affair such as this.
Lastly, and this is really the biggest problem with the story, Brennan doesn’t do anything to address Rippon’s central claim. As attorney and Washington Examiner contributor Gabriel Malor noted Wednesday, “It is bad journalism to just let Rippon’s claim ‘Pence funded gay conversion therapy’ to hang out there as a he-said, he-said, as if it’s up for debate. The claim has repeatedly been debunked.”
More than her misleading tweet, the biggest problem here is that Brennan treats Rippon’s bogus charge as if there’s merit to it. She doesn’t treat it for what it is: Wild speculation based on an interpretation of an archived 2000 campaign website.
It takes a rare sort of talent to write a story centered on a serious allegation without answering whether said allegation is true or not.
