How seriously does official Halifax take Pride Week? Consider this: Right in the middle of last year’s Pride celebration, the Chronicle-Herald published an article outing councillor Peter Lund.
The political classes were at the time caught up in a mini-scandal involving a secret memo sent to councillors by mayor Peter Kelly; the memo called out unnamed councillors for their excessive drinking habits. After the memo was leaked, and with nothing much to do in the summer slow news cycle, the local press played a game of endless speculation of “Who are the drunk councillors?”
On July 22, two days before the 2010 Pride parade, the Chronicle-Herald ran a long article saying Kelly had taken Lund’s car keys away because Lund was drunk. The paper did not name the source of the accusation, and Lund, who had not been charged with a crime, declined to respond to it.
The drinking allegation was fodder for a gossip column, but what happened next is unconscionable: the Chronicle-Herald went on to throw every piece of Lund’s personal information they could find into the article, including that Lund co-owned his house with another man and, by the way, that other man answered the door at the shared house in his bathrobe.Correction: the bathrobe was not mentioned in the Chronicle-Herald article.
“I didn’t consider myself closeted,” says Lund. “But neither did I put out there that I’m gay, because it’s nobody’s business.
“I think it had to do with the mayor, trying to, as he often does, when the heat’s on him, he puts it somebody else,” says Lund to explain how he was accused of attempting to drive drunk. “But that’s not to deal with being outed—because I was told he didn’t know. It’s the Herald that did that.”
Lund says he can’t fathom what the Chronicle-Herald‘s motivation was, but that his Tantallon community has been supportive. “So many people came up to me afterwards and said, ‘This is awful; it shouldn’t have been published and it’s nobody’s business.’
“If there’s anything I can say to young people who are gay and are worried about coming out, it’s: Inspire other people. Because once you inspire other people, things will happen.”
This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2011.
Not my business and not yours.
Ah the Chronically Horrid!
Can they publish some articles about the owner’s boy-toy bankrupting everything he touches?
Or how she, with no help from anyone, rose to the top of her family owned newspaper?
A garbage story in a garbage paper.
It reminds me of a story that was published out in Victoria years ago about these 2 German tourists whose RV caught fire.
One of the lines said, ” The two men, who were sharing one bunk at the time, fled the RV….”
… and The Coast, during Pride week 2011, have decided to re-hash the whole event. Why?
This isn’t news. Let’s get current, shall we?
@Raoul: Because you’re reading an article by Tim Bousquet, The Coast’s resident gossip girl. You didn’t come here for actual objective journalism, did you?
A simple no comment from Peter Lund himself would have solved the problem. Sending someone else to do your speaking begs the question: who is this guy? In this case it’s not official spokesman, father, brother or lawyer. The story said co-owner. Others decided to jump to conclusions and point fingers.
(Yes, I work at the Herald.)
proves how shallow tim and the coast truly are…in this age ,does this reporter have any morals,NO..he has no backbone and has to repeat bad gossip in a rehashed article..how pathjetic is that!!!!!
Weird, I hadn’t heard of this at all at the time, it must have been burried in an article, but now the coast runs an article soley about this? Real cutting edge journalism, too bad News of the World went under, I was hoping that was Tim’s ticket out of Halifax tabloid writing.
What does a persons sexual orientation have to do with their job? His constituents obviously don’t care, they vote for the person who can work and get things done for them, warts and all, unless you’re doing an expose to say he also has warts?
Tim Bousquet is an asshole. I highly suggest The Coast finds a more mature and responsible journalist. Some of the hypocracies of this entire article are blowing my mind.
bward and others…Mr.Lund does NOT have to explain himself to anyone,it’s his own business,not yours,mine or his constituents…..the Halifax Herald and this rag are nothing more than sophomoric attempts at journalism…media in this province are lazy,pathetic and gossip mongers….I,felt insulted by this so called journalistic crap…I call on all people with some intelligence to boycott this rag and read ‘real’ stories….
Fire this reporter Kyle. This is garbage and below the level of your paper.
I thot it was only me that had issues with Tim’s ‘big fish in lil pond’ narcissism. refreshing….