An analysis of news articles published by journalists in the Tallahassee Democrat between February 9th and March 11th show that reporters repeatedly used the term “Don’t Say Gay” slogan when writing about the Parental Rights in Education bill.
The analysis shows that the “Don’t Say Gay” term was used over 6 times more than the title of the bill, “Parental Rights in Education” in news articles.
The “Don’t Say Gay” slogan was adopted by opponents of the Parental Rights in Education bill. Supporters of the bill have argued the slogan mischaracterizes the legislation.
Tallahassee Democrat Print Edition
The analysis included the review of 13 news articles that were related to the Parental Rights in Education bill and published in the print edition of the Tallahassee Democrat between February 9th and March 11th.
The count of the terms “Don’t Say Gay” and “Parental Rights in Education” was determined by an archival search on the Tallahassee Democrat website. The count includes the times the terms were used in the title of the article, in the article, or in captions related to the article.
The analysis found that the “Don’t Say Gay” term was used 40 times in text related to the articles while the title of the bill, “Parental Rights in Education”, was used 6 times.
In the titles of the 13 news articles, “Don’t Say Gay” was used 7 times. The title of the bill, “Parental Rights in Education”, was not used once in the title of any of the 13 news stories.
The issue related to the Parental Rights in Education bill was front page news in the Tallahassee Democrat six times. The “Don’t Say Gay” slogan was included in the title in two of those six news stories. The title of the bill – “Parental Rights in Education”- was not used in the title of any of the news stories published on the front page during this period.
The Journalists
A total of seven journalists were involved in writing the 13 articles published by the Tallahassee Democrat. These journalists were Ana Goñi-Lessan (5), James Call (2), Ryan Dailey (2), Jeffrey Schweers (1), Jim Rosica (1), John Kennedy (1) and Mariah Wiggs (1).
Two of the journalists – Ryan Dailey and Mariah Wiggs – were not listed as affiliated with the Gannett Corporation or by the Tallahassee Democrat, but were noted as authors of articles published in the Tallahassee Democrat.
Goñi-Lessan, the local education reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat, wrote 5 of the 13 articles reviewed. In those 5 articles, the “Don’t’ Say Gay” label was used 19 times and the title of the bill, “Parental Rights in Education”, was used 2 times. In three of the articles by Goñi-Lessan that used the “Don’t Say Gay” slogan, the title of the bill was never mentioned.
In one article credited to Goñi-Lessan, the legislation was described as the “Don’t Say Gay bill” four times.
James Call, a state reporter for USA Today, wrote two articles which mentioned the “Don’t Say Gay” slogan 8 times and used “Parental Rights in Education” once. Three of the “Don’t Say Gay” terms were related to captions.
Provided below is a table of information used in the analysis. The table includes the date of the article, the page the article appeared on, the title, the number of times each term was used in the article and the journalist.
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Steve Stewart is a senior contributor at The Florida Capital Star. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Tallahassee Democrat” by Timothy Burke. Background Photo “Tallahassee Skyline” by UrbanTallahassee. CC BY-SA 3.0.
