This story, which exists solely as the means for somebody to broadcast that Julian Mullis is in a gay relationship, is an object lesson of everything that’s wrong with institutional journalism in this country. It’s a great example of what I think Chris was saying in his Defeatism column a few weeks ago.

It’s important for me to note that if I still worked for The Ledger or The Tribune, I would almost certainly have written this same story in much the same way my friend Rick Rousos wrote it. So when I criticize, I’m criticizing the corrupt and smug standards of modern newspaper and television journalism that force good, conscientious reporters to act as agents in petty squabbles while ignoring the important investigative or explanatory work because it’s hard and not spoon-fed by a malevolent cop or political enemy. Not having to wrestle with my conscience over this is perhaps the best perk of leaving professional journalism. But I was lucky. I had an option. In this economy, many reporters don’t. They hold their noses and cash their checks and feed their kids.

I called Rick to ask about the origin and thought process of this story, and not surprisingly, he wouldn’t comment. Not because he was combative, but because he didn’t think he was authorized to talk about internal Ledger rigamarole. I did get the impression he took no pleasure in writing this piece.

Understand, there’s no way Rick or one of the cop reporters just happened upon this police report during regular rounds or checks. Somebody, either a cop or a political enemy or somebody who’s just mean, called The Ledger and informed about it. That’s how these things work. Ninety percent – or more – of all scoops come from somebody who wants to use reporters for some purpose. That’s always been the case. The key, as a reporter, is how you deal with that. If there’s a specific quibble I have with Rick’s story, it’s that he did not say who pointed him to the report and provide context as to why they might do that. The rejoinder is, well, you can’t jeopardize sources. Balderdash. In this story, the source, whoever it was, is just as much a character as Mullis.

That being said, under the classic newspaper standards for public officials, you have to write this story. After all, Julian Mullis is a mayor of a city. He’s a public official. If a woman was arrested in his home, you’d write about that. And of course, The Ledger and all newspapers have a solemn duty to closely scrutinize the behavior of our important elected and public officials. After all, look how thoroughly they examined the personal economic interests of JD Alexander and his friends in the CSX and Heartland Parkway deals. Oh right, I forgot. I guess that solemn duty only applies when somebody holds your hand and walks you to it. Or when you can do it with a single phone call and faxed police report.

Newspapers have always published these types of gossipy stories. People read them. They’re easy. They sell. But papers used to try to offset them with tougher, public service pieces that truly helped keep powerful people on notice. Back in the day, circa 2000, despite constant business community pressure on Skip and then publisher John Fitzwater, The Ledger gave me the time and backing to take a blowtorch to the Central Florida Development Council. We ran about 10 A1 stories in a row focusing on the agency’s petty self-dealing in those days. I fear that the days of that kind of institutional support for real local reporting on people and organizations with power have come and gone. The Ledger has lost too many reporters, and there’s too much demand for web porn, along the lines of Mullis story. That’s understandable, given the financial and resource realities. But they ought to stop pretending that this Mullis story serves their public mission. They’ve abdicated their public mission, mainly because we, the readers, don’t want to pay for it.

If papers wanted to be serious about their public mission, they could adjust its tenets based on common sense reality. It is absurd to treat Julian Mullis and Buddy Fletcher as public figures of equal coverage importance. Reporting on the personal lives of the people elected by a few hundred votes with the same ferocity – or more, really – than real politicians with real power makes no sense. You might as well report on the personal lives of PTA chairs.

How about, if these small town officials screw up with public money, you investigate and report it. If they’re arrested, report it. Other than that, let them be imperfect citizens like anybody else. Especially if you have no intention of looking into the personal economic behavior of far more important officials.

This whole thing reminds me of that wonderful Anatole France quote: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” You might rewrite it: “Newspaper conventions, in their majestic equality, forbid Mulberry mayor and powerful state politicians alike from keeping their sexuality private when victimized in an alleged crime.”

Finally, I think this highlights powerfully the sheer destructive force of the closet.

Accounts of sad, brutal news events fill newspaper pages every day. See Iran. By comparison, the saga of Mulberry’s mayor is, by comparison, a small thing. Yet, I don’t know that I’ve ever read a more heartbreaking quote in The Ledger than this:

“This will be the laughingstock of my family, and we’ve been here for generations,” Mullis said. “I can take it. But my parents, and my children …”

I’m not gay, so I can’t know the fear that motivates people to hide who they are. But it can’t be healthy for a person – or for their family – to live like an actor at all times, to live as if you’ve committed an undiscovered crime.

Outings are complex things. I support them for people like politicians or preachers – like Ted Haggard, for instance – who cover for themselves by spewing homophobia about others. Beyond that, I think each person needs to make his or her own decision about coming out. But all anecdotal evidence I see and read, as well as common sense, suggests that people who live in full acceptance of who they are, live more happily, as do the people who truly love them.

And, one asks of those who oppose gay marriage, or even basic civic normalization of gay relationships, if Julian Mullis and his kids wouldn’t be far better off today if we lived in world where being gay – a thing no one can control – didn’t make you fear making your family a laughingstock? Do you really want to keep human beings in this twilight world of social existence? For those of you who are religious, do you really think this serves Christ’s purposes? Do you care?

The best summation of her art is something Absher said, “I love capturing people in love.” A glance through her work finds families laughing, brides and grooms playing, and none of the smiles seem forced. These are people enjoying being themselves with a photographer they like and trust.

After a few years shooting portraits, Absher was convinced to shoot a friend’s wedding. The stress of that first wedding soon turned into the energy of capturing people interacting. She’s come to enjoy the wedding work to the point that her work this past year has been predominately weddings. Due to the extensive post-wedding work involved, Absher limits herself to two weddings a month, and she’s already booking dates in 2010. Her suggestion as to when to call for a wedding photographer? “As soon as you’re engaged,” she laughs.

Absher will shoot a wedding anywhere from four hours until the whole day. She and her assistant average about eight hours at the typical wedding. A lot of the shots are “wedding photo journalism” as Absher captures the wedding party from early preparations through the end of the day. Absher says her job is to tell the story of the day.

When she does pose the bride and groom, she lets the location find the shot. Recently she asked a bride in her wedding dress to sit on a dirt road — before the wedding. The relationship Absher has with her clients is shown by the bride’s immediate “I trust you.” Of course, Absher was ready with a sheet of plastic to lay down to protect the dress.

Absher gets a similar level of trust from her portrait clients. She doesn’t sit them in a studio, but finds locations that “have texture.” Absher will meet clients in places such as Lakeland’s downtown. She enjoys the brick and architecture as backgrounds. She doesn’t have specific backdrops in mind, but lets the time and the subject find places that work. “We’ll just walk around exploring new locations,” Absher said.

A typical portrait session will take a couple of hours. Most of her portrait clients are families. She’ll use the time to get them comfortable with her and the camera. “The last 30 minutes is when you get the best shots,” she said. Absher has found if there is a reticent person in the family, it is often the dad. The children are easier as Absher spends time on the ground, at their level, talking and making them comfortable.

Taking a look at Absher’s site would lead you to believe she shoots primarily in black and white. However, she carries two Canon digital cameras to each shoot and creates the black and white versions with Photoshop digital editing software. “I have my own recipe to make the black and white,” Absher said. She added that the “modern side” of her style does love a “punch of color.”

You won’t see a lot of editing tricks in Absher’s images though. Her art is in how she sees clients, locations, and how her personality allows her subjects to look so comfortable and natural.

A lot of her current work is former wedding clients coming to get baby pictures and family portraits. She also gets a good amount of jobs from wedding guests who saw Absher at work. Absher travels the width of Central Florida meeting clients. Unlike some photographers, Absher lists her prices on her site. “I don’t want any surprises,” she said. Absher books new clients through a contact page on her site, and sends an information and pricing email as soon as possible after first contact.

* – Apologies to Elvis Costello or maybe Martin Mull

Note: All photos in this post are (C) Rachel Absher

That stems from a question asked 14 years ago during a panel on “The New Economics of Journalism.” Seated at the head table were Esther Dyson (Forbes columnist), Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. (New York Times, Publisher), Walter Isaacson (Time, New Media Editor), and Frank Daniels III (Nando.net publisher).

The question was from NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen…

I’m Jay Rosen from New York University. And I’d like to address a comment to something that we’ve heard repeatedly throughout the Conference, and a lot in this Panel, which is that what journalists sell us, or the value they add is judgment.

That’s something that I hear a good deal of at conferences like this, and what the conversation never gets to beyond that is: What are the grounds for that judgment? Where is that judgment coming from?

There are a lot of ways to judge the world, and if what “The New York Times”, or any other news medium is doing is providing the information that a human being needs to function well in this society, there are a lot of views of human beings,- there are a lot of ways to function well; there are a lot of views of what’s going on in this society.

And the question becomes: On what grounds are those kinds of judgments made? Now, if we take Esther’s metaphor of mapmaking, which is also interesting, there are a lot of ways to map anything. If I take the State of Connecticut, I can map the river system; I can map the transportation system; I can map the demographics; I can map population shifts. All of those things will produce maps that are accurate, credible, potentially valuable, but there are different ways of mapping the world.

So when I read “The New York Times”, I don’t get just information, and I don’t get just good judgment. I get a vision of what culture is about in the culture pages; I get a vision of what politics is about and for in the political news,- I get a vision of the local community in local sections. And I think one of the questions that’s beginning to be raised in the online area is: Where is this vision coming from?

In the years when “The New York Times”, for example, saw culture a certain way and didn’t include rock and roll as part of it, I wasn’t buying your judgment. I was waiting for your judgment to catch up to the way the world is. Do you see?

So it seems to me that the challenge of online world, which incidentally, is also the challenge of public journalism, is: How can we create grounds for judgment that arise out of interactions with people and relationships with people?

And it seems to me that the days of judgment coming from a citadel of judgment may be drawing to a close. And now, it’s the quality of our relationships with people that will determine the quality of our judgment, and the ultimate grounds for making those judgments that add value in journalism.

Rosen had the right idea in 1995. Newspapers have long labored under the belief that their institutions provided the trust that people had in the news. While there might have been a day when people followed select newspapers like they follow favorite sports teams today, there has always been a number of readers who were waiting for their “judgment to catch up to the way the world is.” I believe the Internet greatly accelerated that process.

So now, it is up to the newspapers we read to re-prove themselves. They have to come, pressman’s hat in hand, and improve the quality of their relationship with their readers. Those readers no longer want persons in Ivory Towers who explain All the News Fit to Print. They no longer expect their letters to reporters go unanswered. They want neighbors who understands the subtleties of their community; a trusted analytical voice who is in the same traffic jams, travels the same potholed streets, and lives in the same brown grass dream homes they do. That’s why many readers turn to writers that offer two-way relationships — be they bloggers, mainstream reporters, or or alternative publishers. It’s those people they trust, not the institution where they work.

The I4 community newspapers will eventually reach their equilibrium of staff and news output. They’ll return to printing the news of our neighbors. We won’t become isolationists. We’ll still get our national, and international news. Just not from our hometown newspapers. We’ll get the news from people we know. And some will even work at the newspapers.

A sign of the season: Can your home weather storms? If not, listen up

A sign of how far we’re gone since 2000: Shielding Press Empowers The Public

Bonus:

If you still can’t recount them do they exist? New voting machines: Paper trail to nowhere?

Is the News Chief next? Cypress Gardens to Test Weekends-Only

Presented without any comment whatsoever: Amtgard! Battles Begin With Swords Of Foam