Lawmaker using a homophobic slur to deride the press is condemned & dropped from committees

The saga began on April 10 in a Facebook group entitled Ann Arbor Politics. A user shared a commentary article written by from John Hiner, an editor at MLive.com, about his and other journalists’ experience being harassed online, and even having their private information publicized in a tactic known as doxing.

Hayner, among others, complained about Hiner’s perspective, with Hayner claiming “MLive feeds the frenzy” because a photo of his home was once shared by the publication. “MLive knows what it’s doing, they want controversy, it drives clicks,” he claimed.

Hayner continued commenting, mocking the description of Hiner and others as “journalists” and eventually, sharing a quote with the group’s 1,200-plus members, which read in part: “the press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade.” The group’s administrator reported that Facebook removed the comment on their own.

The quote is from the 1971 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, an autobiographical book (told through a fictional persona) that the famed late author self-described as “a failed experiment in the gonzo journalism.” In the passage, which is at the book’s conclusion, Thompson is criticizing a newspaper article while alluding to his struggles with his own reporting during the story’s plot. He prefaced the quote, “why bother with newspapers, if this is all they offer? [then-Vice President Spiro] Agnew was right.”