Rivenburg & Signorile

Wednesday was a travel day so I was late to notice that Michelangelo Signorile at the New York Press has read a lot into LAT staffer Roy Rivenburg based on one story about gay marriage and his controversial but explained association with the World Journalism Institute. Rivenburg tweaks him back with flair in a letter posted at Romenesko.

It's time you all knew the truth: I am part of a vast right-wing-Christian-fundamentalist-Illuminati-fascist-Halliburton conspiracy to infiltrate secular newsrooms and publish extremist propaganda under the guise of objective news. For 12 years, I've labored in secrecy at the Los Angeles Times, under the code name "Roy Rivenburg." Unfortunately, my cover has been blown. As columnist Michelangelo Signorile and a handful of obscure bloggers have revealed, I recently managed to sneak a blatantly biased story about gay marriage into the L.A. Times. It was a daring operation. First, I had to get several top editors to think the story idea was theirs and choose me to write it. Next, after taking dictation from my Christian Conspiracy handlers, I got the final draft approved by a phalanx of liberal Democrat editors and copy editors. My secret? Mass hypnosis, of course...

OK, so maybe Operation Ix-Nay on the Ay-Gays wasn't my finest work as a covert Vatican operative (I'm Catholic) at the L.A. Times. But there's more. In 1997, I wrote an expose of the public-relations war over partial-birth abortion that earned me a scathing letter from Helen Alvare of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Other religion-related pieces I've done here have been scolded by William Donohue of the Catholic League and denounced from the pulpit by Chuck Smith, the fundamentalist pastor of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, to name a few. So, as you can see, I'm doing a great job of what Mr. Signorile calls "aiding and abetting the hidden Christian right agenda."