Revisiting the (Queer) Ghosts of Journalism's Past

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Source Publication

Journal of Media Ethics

Source ISSN

0306-6800

Original Item ID

DOI: 10.1080/23736992.2025.2566127

Abstract

This paper examines the Black Nite Brawl, a pivotal yet long-overlooked moment of queer resistance that occurred in Milwaukee in 1961, nearly eight years before the Stonewall riots. Through a critical discourse analysis of both original coverage and recent commemorations, this study reveals how dominant journalistic frameworks of objectivity and neutrality erased the event’s socio-political significance. Drawing from queer theory and hauntology, I argue that these erasures function as hauntings that continue to shape public memory, media representation, and professional ethics. In response, I propose restorative queer ethics, a model that centers historical accountability (responsibility), amplifies marginalized voices (advocacy), and challenges normative ideals that have excluded LGBTQ+ lives from journalism’s first draft of history (reflexivity). This framework insists journalism must go beyond documenting the present to revisiting and revising the past in service of a more inclusive and justice-oriented public memory.

Comments

Journal of Media Ethics (2025). Online before print. DOI.

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