My first article for salon.com, “Why can’t gay dwarves get married in Middle-earth?” dealt with the issue of same-sex marriage in video games, specifically Lord of the Rings Online.

The article was trashed in the letters column as being a waste of time, silly, and not about Iraq. One blogger pronounced me the winner of the Award for Excellence in Trivial News Reporting.

My initial reaction was basically, “Of course it’s goofy! Does everything have to be deathly serious?” But the positive responses, including some very articulate replies to the “this article is completely goofy and a waste of time” camp, made me reconsider. The article does deal with a serious issue that means a lot to people – it just looks at how that issue is being addressed in a silly, arguably frivolous venue.

At any rate, the story provoked a lot of interesting discussions in various blogs, which was rewarding to me as a journalist, since with magazines or newspapers, I’m usually not sure if anyone even reads my articles unless someone makes a special effort to complain.

As for the Award for Excellence in Trivial Reporting, I would like to point out that the wording implies not that my story was the most trivial news that came out this year, but rather that of all the trivial news that came out, mine was the most excellently reported.

I can live with that.

Tags: blog, GLBT, my journalism, print links, salon.com.
Posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 12:00 pm