How gay is 'too gay'?

When it comes to generating news headlines, nothing works quite like a 'furious debate'. It suggests heated arguments, the passionate exchange of views and an oppportunuty for the news organisation in question to demonstrate its objectivity and balance.

At least, that's how it's supposed to work. Unfortunately, in the search for easy content and stories that write themselves, the 'debate' is engineered after the fact. The news team invent a topic, choose and inflammatory angle, and then go looking for talking heads to either support their view or shoot it down.

Which is how CNN came to run a story this week entitled "Is The Surge of Gay Characters on TV Sending the Wrong Message?" Filled with ugly rhetoric that makes it sound as though America's moral foundations are being attacked by a well-groomed sleeper-cell of catty best friends, the story wasted no time engaging the services of Dan Gainor, VP of the Culture and Media Institute.

This conservative action group, which pompously pronounces its mission of 'Advancing Truth and Virtue in the Public Square', believes that mainstream TV is 'promoting the homosexual lifestyle' and that can only be "bad for American society". I've never understood the whole concept of promoting a 'gay lifestyle' as though it's referring to an exclusive retirement village on the Florida coast.

Gainor believes that TV shows are "normalising something which a lot of people don't want to see normalised". Which is the 'la la la I'm not listening' approach to a progressive society. His views are then followed by interview footage of a handsome gay couple with their twin kids, talking about the value of visibility and representation. But for some reason, known only to the editorial team, the clip has been artificially aged, giving the sinister impression that the film was found in the flooded basement of a serial killer.

CNN's 'objective position' is also hampered by the fact that its reporters keep pointing out that people like Chris Colfer and Jane Lynch are 'openly gay in real life' with a disbelieving tone that makes it sound like the two actors also regularly release flocks of doves form their sleeves.

The weakest element of the whole story, besides the fact that anyone saw fit to commission it in the first place, is that the whole point of the item is undermined by the final segment.

In its annual audit of the major TV networks, GLAAD assesses the treatment and representation of LGBT characters and personalities - this year finding that there was still a long way for many of the networks to go before they could consider themselves fully inclusive. And yet CNN references this study, even pointing out how several of the networks had scored pitiful ratings. So where on earth did they come up with the idea that there's been a surge of gay characters, when CBS currently doesn't have a single one on any of its shows.

I guess it's too much to hope that a little common sense and professional integrity might one day "invade" TV news coverage.

Who needs gold when you've got silver?

Brands love a good celebrity spokesperson. Someone with a squeaky-clean reputation who'll happily smile and hold up their 'product of choice' every time they come within ten feet of a camera lens.

Before he became an occasionally tolerable actor, Mark Wahlberg's claim to fame was as a spokesmodel for Calvin Klein underwear - even though he seldom did any actual speaking. And Michael Jordan seemed to spend more time holding shoes in ads than he did wearing them on the court.

For brands with a certain sex appeal, it must be easy to recruit willing celebrities to gnash their teeth and extol your products' inarguable virtues. It's not quite so easy when the shit you're shifting is about as cool as a Scotch bonnet pepper.

So spare a thought for haircare brand Rise-N-Shine, the makers of Go Away Gray. They're desperate to snag their own grinning meat-puppet, but there's a catch.

Since, as its self-evident name suggests, their product eradicates those unwanted grey (UK blog, UK spelling) hairs, it's going to be tough for them to find a handsomely appealing and famous face. Especially one that's willing to admit that they've been pulling the lustrous brunette wool over our eyes all this time.

But that's OK, because they've got someone very special in mind. Anderson Cooper is one of CNN's most respected (and lusted after) news anchors, as famous for his shiny mane of prematurely silver hair as he is for his authoritative journalistic approach.

In a world of screeching blowhards and crusty relics, Anderson's metrosexual appeal and love of figure-hugging sportswear makes him the news man that women want to sleep with, and men, well, they also want to sleep with him. He's famously ambiguous about his private life, but is regularly snapped by the paps with a muscular young friend.

The people at Go Away Gray are hoping that Anderson will be tempted by their offer of $1 million (cue anachronistic Doctor Evil pinkie-finger gesture) to try their fantastic course of Catalese-containing pills. Company mouthpiece Cathy Beggan told the press "Anderson Cooper is a really visible and well-respected figure and [we] thought he would be a great spokesperson for the product and the company. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s a handsome gentleman."

Unfortunately, this is one handsome gentleman unlikely to be swayed by this kind of courtship. For a start, Anderson is the son of heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, and so it's unlikely that he finds himself doing a stock-take of the fridge towards the end of each month.

More importantly, his status as the king of Silver Foxes means that asking him to advocate any kind of hair colourant would be like asking Amy Winehouse to advertise Um Bongo.

On the other hand, as any good PR knows, the key to breaking a story is getting people talking about your product. Anderson Cooper may be more likely to start expressing breast milk live on air than advertise an anti-grey hair brand, but at least they've scored their media coverage.

Let's be honest - that million dollar reward was probably never on the cards. Although just imagine how many people would have gone grey overnight if he'd said yes.