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| Don Lemon, left, urges John Campbell III, Gabrielle A. Richardson and Gary A. Foster Jr., supporters of Bishop Eddie Long, to keep an open mind about the sexual allegations against Long. (From Richard Prince's Journal-isms) Watch Video Clip |
CNN's Don Lemon said "it just came out" during an interview he was doing on the Bishop Eddie Long scandal. Over the weekend, Lemon admitted, on-air, to three young members of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and his national television audience, that he was the victim of a pedophile at the age of 6.
On the surface, a brave revelation which drew many messages of support to Lemon. I feel for Lemon and any person who has endured the pain a pedophile inflicts on a young mind; a young psyche. But I question the journalistic wisdom of revealing that personal secret while doing his job.
Lemon told Richard Prince of the Maynard Institute's "Journal-isms" blog, "It was unplanned and I am human. There was no agenda behind it." That is certainly possible, but in the more than 20-years that I spent working in television news, on the local level, I never had a deep personal secret spontaneously fly out of my mouth, while on-air, related or unrelated to the subject matter being discussed.
