Curves has rapidly become a hot name in fitness club circles and it has a Texas/Houston connection. So of course, the Chronicle picks up an AP story about the company and its founder, Gary Heavin:
The company is the creation of Gary Heavin, 49, who heads Curves International in Waco. Heavin was a millionaire by age 30 after taking over a failing health club in Houston and expanding it into a chain of 17 clubs. But then came a divorce, bankruptcy and business failure. He spent 2 1/2 months in jail when he couldn’t make child support payments.
In 1992, Heavin and his second wife, Diane, opened the first Curves club. It was small and simple, a place where women could feel comfortable.
Three years later, Heavin was selling franchises, and by 1998 there were 500. Curves aims to have more than 25,000 — including 8,000 in Asia and 8,000 in Europe — within five years. By comparison, Gold’s Gyms and Bally Total Fitness, two of the biggest fitness clubs in the country, have about 1,000 facilities between them.
Toward the end of the article, the AP reporter passes on this important information:
Curves and Heavin, however, aren’t without critics.
Some dismiss Curves as a fad. Heavin, a born-again Christian, has been criticized for his conservative political views and donations to anti-abortion causes. Some members have quit the clubs over his political stands.
At the annual Curves convention in Las Vegas this month, one of the topics was “the fallout from my values,” Heavin said.
Oh no! He’s a born-again Christian!
The immediate question that comes to mind is, has the Chronicle ever run a story about Progressive Insurance that also told us how its chairman, Peter Lewis, funneled over $22 million into 527 groups in an effort to oust President Bush; and told us about Lewis’ efforts to legalize marijuana and his arrest in New Zealand for possession of marijuana? I don’t remember a story like that.
Old media is very fast to tell us if someone in the news has a conservative or Christian background, but if someone has a liberal background, usually that is played down or glossed over entirely. And even though the Chronicle didn’t write the Curves story, a Chronicle editor chose it.
Here’s another example: Friday’s Chronicle ran a story about one of the main supporters of Prop. 2 who is a Christian:
Hartman says his religious convictions fueled his leading role in organizing the anti-tax initiative Proposition 2 that put him at odds with Mayor Bill White and many in the business community.
And at odds with the Chronicle, who supported Prop. 1. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the point of THAT story.
Another article in Friday’s Chronicle was about a mayoral aide who went to meet “with more than 100 members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.” That would be ACORN, a very liberal group that most recently was accused of submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registration forms in several states, including Ohio.
Again, the point is not so much the merits of each story, but identification and labeling within. A Christian who supports Prop. 2, which the Chronicle did not support, is identified in detail as a religious conservative who has even brought religion into his workplace (the horror!), but ACORN is given the tame “community activist” tag.
Labeling and identifying can be helpful for readers to get the full context of a story, but it should be done fairly, on both sides of the political aisle.
