William Douglas Ireland (March 31, 1946 – October 26, 2013) was an American journalist and blogger who wrote about

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

, power,

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...

, and LGBT issues. He was the U.S. correspondent for the French political-investigative weekly

Bakchich Bakchich was a French news website founded in May 2006. It has some articles translated into English. The chief editor was , a former reporter at the satirical weekly ''Le Canard enchaîné''. Its name finds its origin in the Arabic word "baksheesh ...

, for which he also wrote a weekly column, and he was also the Contributing Editor for International Affairs of

Gay City News ''Gay City News'' (stylized as ''gcn'') is a free weekly newspaper based in New York City focusing on local and national issues relating to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. It was founded in 1994 as ''Lesbian Gay New Y ...

. Scott Tucker has called him "not only a left-wing critic of sexual and political conformism among sectors of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movements, but ... also one of the notable public intellectuals of the civil libertarian left."

Professional

An early member of the Dump Johnson movement, Ireland was recruited for the staff of the presidential campaign of the man who became the anti-war candidate of the Dump Johnson movement,

Senator Eugene McCarthy Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...

, for whom Ireland coordinated the Mid-Atlantic region of states. Following the

1968 Democratic National Convention The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Earlier that year incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, thus maki ...

(at which he coordinated McCarthy's labor support and helped organize demonstrations by Convention delegates against

police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...

targeting anti-war demonstrators) Ireland went to Long Island to help run the successful campaign for Congress by

Allard Lowenstein Allard Kenneth Lowenstein (January 16, 1929 – March 14, 1980)Lowenstein's gravestone, Arlington National Cemeteryphoto onlineon the cemetery's official website. Accessed online 28 October 2006. After a stint as a journalist on the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

'', when it was still owned by Dorothy Schiff, and then on the Community News Service (a short-lived

wire service A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswi ...

providing news of the

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

, Latino, and other minority racial communities), he resigned to manage the successful 1970 anti-Vietnam war campaign for Congress by

Bella Abzug Bella Savitzky Abzug (July 24, 1920 – March 31, 1998), nicknamed "Battling Bella", was an American lawyer, politician, social activist, and a leader in the women's movement. In 1971, Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Stein ...

, making her the first left radical to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives since Vito Marcantonio. He also managed Abzug's 1976 campaign for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator from

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, which Abzug narrowly lost by 0.10 per cent of the vote to Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Ireland played a studio executive in

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

's Stardust Memories.

Journalism

Having already worked briefly at the ''New York Post'' and Community News Service, Ireland returned full-time to journalism in 1977, becoming a political columnist for the SoHo Weekly News. In an obituary, Micah Sifry wrote that "It was said that he could have been the 'next Jimmy Breslin,' but I think Dougie was too pure about his politics to ingratiate himself with enough people to win that label." Among his notable articles was a 1978 expose, daring for the time, of violence against gay men in the Ramble, known as a cruising area in Central Park in New York City. He lived for ten years in France, writing on European politics and culture for various publications, including English language Paris city magazine, Paris Passion magazine; and he continued to write frequently about French and European politics and foreign affairs. Ireland was an assiduous promoter in the United States of the work of the prolific young French philosopher Michel Onfray. Ireland was a columnist for ''The Village Voice'', ''The New York Observer'' ''New York'' magazine, and the Paris daily ''Libération'', among other publications. He was also a contributing editor of ''POZ (magazine), POZ'', the monthly for the HIV-positive community, of the magazine In These Times, and the French satirical news website

. In the late 1990s, he was a contributor to The Nation. Sifry, a colleague of his at the time, wrote that "I think one of my most trying experiences as a young editor was being in the middle of his push to publish a damning indictment" of then-President Bill Clinton'', ''and the editors' "discomfort with his ferocity and willingness to infer the worst from a mixed bag of solid facts and not-so-solid surmises." However, Sifry added that Ireland "was more right than not ... in the grand sense."' From mid-2005, Ireland was the Contributing Editor for International Affairs of

, the largest LGBT weekly newspaper in New York City and in the U.S.

Criticism

Ireland's reporting on Iran in the several years after 2005 drew harsh rebuttals from a number of Iranian activists, as well as from Scott Long (human rights activist), Scott Long, director of the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. They charged that Ireland and Gay City News generally were uncritical in relying on sources who maintained that two young men hanged in Mashhad, Iran in mid-2005 –– after being convicted of raping an underage boy at a time when they themselves were underage –– had in fact been involved in consensual sex. Long and some other human rights advocates criticized activists and reporters, including Ireland and controversial British campaigner Peter Tatchell, saying they were engaging in unwarranted speculation about the motives for the case. Ireland continued to produce articles claiming a pattern of "anti-gay" executions in Iran. However, no professional human rights organization ever endorsed these claims, or identified any recent case of persons sentenced to death for consensual homosexual conduct in Iran. Long and others became increasingly critical, charging that Ireland and others were making claims without evidence, and imputing a Western gay identity to Iranians coming from a very different cultural experience. The conflict between Long on one side and Ireland and Tatchell on the other side was at times vitriolic and led to a 2010 episode in which Human Rights Watch and Long apologized in writing to Tatchell. However, Long remained a critic of Ireland to the end, faulting him for relying excessively on single sources in his reporting, for intolerance toward Islam and for failing to understand complex international situations. In particular, Long claimed that Ireland had unduly promoted the career of the flamboyant Russian activist Nikolai Alekseev while ignoring other Russian groups. Alekseev had a record of erratic behavior and supporting far right-wing causes, and later engaged in anti-Semitic outbursts. Scott Tucker writes that "In his reports on the Russian gay movement, and especially of gay activist Nikolai Alexeyev, I found [Ireland] less reliable.... When he became increasingly confined by illness, he could not pretend to be a truly investigative journalist."

Personal life

He was born in Duluth, Minnesota and later lived in Port Hueneme, California, where his father worked in the information office of the Naval Battalion Construction Center. Ireland developed polio as a child as the result of his Christian Scientist parents refusing to allow him to receive the polio vaccine. After nights out drinking with writers like Christopher Hitchens and Gore Vidal, Ireland gave up liquor. In his final years, Ireland suffered from diabetes, kidney disease, severe sciatica, and weakened lungs and progressive muscle deterioration post-polio syndrome, related to childhood polio. He also survived at least two major strokes. He often felt too ill to leave his apartment or have company. Ireland died in his East Village, Manhattan, East Village home on October 26, 2013. Ireland's partner was Hervé Couergou. He died of AIDS in 1996.

Activism

A severe critic from the left of Bill Clinton, President Bill Clinton's presidency, Ireland for three years wrote a syndicated Clinton Watch column. He wrote extensively in opposition to George H. W. Bush, President George H. W. Bush's Gulf War, as well as George W. Bush, President George W. Bush's Iraq War and War in Afghanistan (2001–present), War in Afghanistan. At an early age, Ireland was part of the early 1960s New Left, American New Left. He was a member of Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and was elected to its National Council in 1963 at the age of 17. He also spent a year on the SDS national staff, as Assistant National Secretary, in 1963–64. Ireland dropped out of SDS in 1966 to devote his time to electoral organizing against the Vietnam War. As a staff member of the New Jersey Industrial Union Council AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers Region 9-A, in 1967 he helped to organize the National Labor Leadership Assembly for Peace to oppose the Vietnam War. He was involved in the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) and Gay Liberation Front (GLF).

References

External links

Doug Ireland's blog DIRELAND

Doug Ireland's articles for ''The Nation''

Doug Ireland's articles for the ''L.A. Weekly''

Doug Ireland's articles for ''In These Times''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ireland, Doug American male journalists American bloggers 1946 births 2013 deaths American gay writers LGBT journalists from the United States LGBT rights activists from the United States LGBT people from Minnesota American human rights activists American anti-war activists The Village Voice people The Nation (U.S. magazine) people People with polio 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male bloggers 21st-century LGBT people