I began writing this week’s publisher’s point on the topic of reporting and editorializing on community members and organizations with whom I have personal relationships.

Throughout the years, many friends have been the subject of news stories and editorials. As difficult as this may be, I believe our community benefits from having a newspaper that reports on its own members – highlighting both accomplishments and setbacks.

And we’ve seen the benefits of having our elected officials and organizations held accountable at all levels. From community newspapers like the Gay & Lesbian Times and our city’s own Union-Tribune to nationally read news sources such as the Washington Post and The New York Times, the press serves as a necessary piece of our democratic process. And while we don’t always get it right, our job is like any other newspaper’s – to report on the community, and, in the case of the Gay & Lesbian Times, San Diego’s GLBT community.

At about the halfway point, I received a letter to the editor from Councilmember Toni Atkins in response to last week’s editorial, “The Kroll report: you do the math,” and to a news story we published last week, “Questions about indictments arise following release of Kroll report.” Atkins’ letter is published on page 13 of this issue. It was upon receipt of this letter that the tone and subject matter of this publisher’s point took a dramatic turn.

I consider Atkins a friend of mine and most certainly a friend of the community. Last year, the Gay & Lesbian Times honored her with our first-ever Person of the Year award and pictured her on our cover for her work as acting mayor, among many other accomplishments as our city council member. In print, we’ve sung her praises and from time to time disagreed with her on an issue or two. However, to ask this paper or any other legitimate news source to bury its head and give her a pass on the outrageous behavior of the current City Council described in the recently issued Kroll report is insulting. And she should know better.

To illustrate what she’s asking, imagine this hypothetical situation: The day after former Councilmember George Stephens refuses to sign the proclamation declaring Pride weekend here in San Diego, or U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter signs the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy outlawing gay, lesbian and bisexual service members from serving openly and proudly in the military, a report is released implicating both in a financial scandal that will strap our city’s residents for decades. The report crucifies them, stating that they “deliberately failed to obey legal requirements,” and that “the evidence demonstrates not mere negligence but deliberate disregard for the law, disregard for fiduciary responsibility, and disrespect for the financial welfare of the City’s residents….”

Adding insult to injury, the report claims that when it came time to disclose these wrongdoings, Stevens and Hunter “deliberately” concealed evidence from San Diego citizens and “knowingly and improperly caused the City to violate federal and state law.”

What would the city’s gay and lesbian publication be expected to report? What would our editorial be expected to opine?

Now substitute those names for politicians who are gay-friendly, or gay or lesbian. Should the standards be different?

Haven’t we been fighting to be treated equally by our peers and in the media based on our ability to perform our job, not based on our sexual orientation?

Yet another example is the Randy “Duke” Cunningham scandal. Imagine if the Republican-leaning U-T decided not to publish his indiscretions. We’re not comparing Atkins to Cunningham, rather we’re pointing out a paper’s responsibility to report the news.

In last week’s editorial, we took Atkins to task for her votes. We said she should come to the community and explain her actions as implicated in the Kroll report and why she spent more than half a million dollars of taxpayer money on private legal advice – everything you would’ve wanted us to say and ask of an elected politician we didn’t support. But because Atkins is one of our own, we’ve heard grumblings all week long about how the Gay & Lesbian Times is attacking her. Why the double standard? I say we should treat our elected officials equally and without bias. Isn’t fair and equal treatment at the center of the gay rights movement?

I sat in my office for hours reviewing last week’s editorial, feeling the pain of publishing something unflattering about someone I care about, and feeling the pressure from a community that would cheer me on for writing critically about someone we don’t like, but given the same circumstances would string me up for writing the same way about someone we do.

Atkins said she’s disappointed in the tone and content in last week’s publication. But I’m disappointed in her. Trying to turn this against us is a cheap trick politicians have been using for years, and that’s beneath her. All of the facts we reported were pulled directly from the Kroll report – the same report she and her fellow council members spent $20 million on to investigate the city. Did she expect us to simply ignore it when it came back implicating her of wrongdoing?

Yes, Atkins did lead the council on clean needle exchange, the Boy Scouts, medicinal marijuana, renters’ rights and a living wage for workers. But that’s what this community elected her to do. That’s her job. Any employee in Atkins’ office who did his or her job well for many consecutive years but broke the law would most likely be fired or at the minimum called upon to answer questions about their behavior.

Our weekly electronic news blast polled more than 6,700 people in San Diego and asked them if Atkins should meet with the community to have a frank and unscripted question-and-answer session regarding the Kroll report. Eighty-seven percent of the respondents answered yes.

Atkins said she expected to receive the “benefit of the doubt” from a community publication like ours “especially since, given the legal nature of the situation, [she is] not in a position to directly respond.” We have given her the benefit of the doubt. We simply said, “Say it isn’t so, Toni!” There is no legal reason or restriction that would prohibit her from proclaiming her innocence.

Michael G. Portantino, Publisher