Dorothy has long ago pulled the curtain back on the Wizard, and the machinery of the modern media is just all too apparent.

I was struck by the 'revelation' that Facebook had paid a public relations firm to plant negative stories about Google. This wasn't actually a surprise, I've known about the practice for decades, but what you see now that you didn't see, even a decade ago, is how something that used to be a disreputable practice, is now mainstream journalism, with credentialed reporters from mainstream media properties like the Washington Post shilling PR content for coin. It's all just one big advertisement now--a transparent attempt to promote a political or commercial agenda for fun and profit.

Just today, I noted this odd article in the New York Times. Odd because it had no discernable news value

Mr. Lemon has not made a secret of his sexual orientation in his work life; many of his CNN co-workers and managers have long been aware that he is gay. But he still acknowledged that going public in his book carries certain risks.

“I’m scared,” he said in a telephone interview. “I’m talking about something that people might shun me for, ostracize me for.”

Even beyond whatever effect his revelation might have on his television career, Mr. Lemon said he recognized this step carried special risk for him as a black man.

“It’s quite different for an African-American male,” he said. “It’s about the worst thing you can be in black culture. You’re taught you have to be a man; you have to be masculine. In the black community they think you can pray the gay away.” He said he believed the negative reaction to male homosexuality had to do with the history of discrimination that still affects many black Americans, as well as the attitudes of some black women.

“You’re afraid that black women will say the same things they do about how black men should be dating black women.” He added, “I guess this makes me a double minority now.”

All I really know about CNN viewers is that there aren't very many of them. I presume they are center-left, and thus liberal-minded about such things as homosexuality, but judging from the concern, perhaps not.

The rest of his anxiety about being ostrasized for being a gay black man just seems like so much crap to me, especially since Mr. Lemon has long been 'out' in his private life. Is it possible that his friends and family are willing to accept his sexual orientation as long as he stayed in the close while on the air, but won't now that he's doing a book tour?

Which means of course that Lemon is using his homosexuality as a faux-controversy to promote and enhance his career. As he says, he's a double-minority, and a victim of sexual molestation as well, which means the network gets some serious Progressive street cred with him on board. Scared my ass. This is likely the best thing that will ever happen to him.

I note this because Lemon's trepidation about 'coming out' to his viewing audience is part of a pattern by the left-wing media---according trail-blazer status to late-comers while shunning actual social pioneers as 'bad for business'. Lemon isn't risking a damn thing, and neither will anyone who books him for an interview. On the other hand, you might want to ask a real trail blazer how things are going for him these days.

Is there any more precarious situation than being a liberal-minded black man on Fox News? Juan Williams is a true untouchable who you won't be seeing on Oprah promoting his book.