Editorial- This Is An Example Of Execrable Journalism

By Brody Levesque | WASHINGTON D. C. -- It is not often I find it necessary to publicly criticise another journalist, particularly since I too have my share of gaffes, but an article I read today regarding a recent interview by GQ Australia magazine with actor Taylor Lautner for the cover of the magazine's October/November issue really frosted me.

What is bothersome is that the interviewer, Mickey Rapkin, is also a senior editor at GQ. Asking the young actor the expected stock-in-trade questions about his career and its affects on him both positive along with the pitfalls of fame, Rapkin threw in what I see as an unnecessary and completely gratuitous question that was in my opinion only geared towards titillating the magazine's gay male readership.

During the course of the interview, Rapkin mentioned a recent dinner in Los Angeles where the actor had dinner with openly gay Academy Award winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and Oscar nominated director Gus Van Sant. Rapkin asked Lautner if the two men had a pass at him to which the actor responded;

 "No, definitely not," Lautner replied. "I think they know I'm straight. But they're great guys. They're a lot of fun. It's not a coincidence that there was a writer, a director and an actor at dinner."

The Advocate magazine has also questioned, and rightly so, whether Rapkin who is openly gay himself, would have posed a similar question if Lautner had dined with two older straight women.

"Would GQ have asked Lautner the same question if he'd dined with two older straight women? Regardless, Lautner would probably have shrugged off the question. He informed the interviewer that he doesn't discuss his personal life."

And that is exactly the point that the young actor made when he told Rapkin that he doesn't discuss his personal life, something- had Rapkin bothered doing a thorough background research fact check prior to his interview- would have discovered.Young Lautner has repeatedly declined to discuss his private life. But, for Rapkin to try an connect the dots at a dinner with two older men, who happen to be openly gay, and read into it vis a vis his absurd question is just plain wrong and unprofessional.