Daily Beast Defends Having Reporter Catfish Olympic Athletes On Grindr

"A central part of The Daily Beast's mission is to fight for full equality and equal treatment for LGBT people around the world."

From: NewNowNext

 By now you’ve likely heard about Nico Hines, the heterosexual Daily Beast writer who decided to use Grindr to bait male athletes at the Summer Olympics in Rio.

Shortly after the piece went live, the gay Internet exploded with criticism that what Hines did was, at the very least cruel, and possibly dangerous for closeted Olympians from oppressive countries.

 After a storm of outrage from OutSports, Dan Savage, out Olympic swimmer Amini Fonua and thousands of regular folk, Daily Beast editor in chief John Avlon edited the article to remove some details about the athletes, and added a “Editor’s note” to explain what it was supposed to be about.

“The concept for the piece was to see how dating and hook-up apps were being used in Rio by athletes,” wrote Avlon. “It just so happened that Nico had many more responses on Grindr than apps that cater mostly to straight people, and so he wrote about that.”

 But there’s at least some expectation of privacy on an dating app, especially for someone not engaged in hypocritical behavior or working against the LGBT community. If Hines (left) had posted about women he found on Tinder, it would’ve just been tasteless.

But gay men have to navigate more dangerous waters—especially if they come from a country with retrograde attitudes or laws about homosexuality.

 “There was a concern that even mentioning the home nation of some gay athletes could compromise their safety,” added Avlon. “We apologize for potentially jeopardizing that safety in any way. As a result, we have removed all descriptions of the men and women’s profiles that we previously described.”

Though calls to have the article taken down have not been answered, Avlon said the Beast “clearly fell short” of its goal “to us to deliver stories that are so clear, they can’t be misinterpreted.”

Below Avlon’s full statement.

Editor’s Note: A number of readers complained to The Daily Beast after the publication of the original iteration of this story. We take such complaints seriously because a central part of The Daily Beast’s mission is to fight for full equality and equal treatment for LGBT people around the world. Publishing an article that in any way could be seen as homophobic is contrary to our mission.

There was legitimate concern that the original version of this story might out gay male athletes, even by implication, or compromise their safety. This was never our reporter’s intention, of course. No names were ever used and some of the profiles described were of straight women.

But there was a concern that even mentioning the home nation of some gay athletes could compromise their safety. We apologize for potentially jeopardizing that safety in any way. As a result, we have removed all descriptions of the men and women’s profiles that we previously described.

The concept for the piece was to see how dating and hook-up apps were being used in Rio by athletes. It just so happened that Nico had many more responses on Grindr than apps that cater mostly to straight people, and so he wrote about that. Had he received straight invitations, he would have written about those. He never claimed to be anyone he was not, did not offer anything to anyone, and immediately admitted that he was a journalist whenever he was asked who he was.

Some readers have read Nico as mocking or sex-shaming those on Grindr. We do not feel he did this in any way. But it’s up to us to deliver stories that are so clear, they can’t be misinterpreted—and we clearly fell short of that standard in this article.

Accordingly, we have made some editorial changes to the article, responding to readers’ concerns, and are again sorry for any upset the original version of this piece inspired.—John Avlon, Editor in Chief

Update: Some time after 9pm, the Daily Beast removed Hines’ article and replaced it with the following statement:

Today, The Daily Beast took an unprecedented but necessary step: We are removing an article from our site, “The Other Olympic Sport In Rio: Swiping.”

The Daily Beast does not do this lightly. As shared in our editor’s note earlier today, we initially thought swift removal of any identifying characteristics and better clarification of our intent was the adequate way to address this. Our initial reaction was that the entire removal of the piece was not necessary. We were wrong.

Today we did not uphold a deep set of The Daily Beast’s values. These values—which include standing up to bullies and bigots, and specifically being a proudly, steadfastly supportive voice for LGBT people all over the world—are core to our commitment to journalism and to our commitment to serving our readers.

As a newsroom, we succeed together and we fail together, and this was a failure on The Daily Beast as a whole, not a single individual. The article was not intended to do harm or degrade members of the LGBT community, but intent doesn’t matter, impact does. Our hope is that removing an article that is in conflict with both our values and what we aspire to as journalists will demonstrate how seriously we take our error.

We screwed up. We will do better.