Last week, we tried to analyze the dust-up over the (alleged!) homophobic comment (allegedly!) made by New York Times photo director Michele McNally at a Times party to an employee. As her defenders like to note, she is the first photo editor to be named an assistant managing editor and therefore get her name on the big, fancy NYT masthead. And we didn't want to rush to judgment; after all, innocent until proven guilty and the like, and we speculated that maybe there were also some culture/gender clash issues at work. Well, the photographers, in addition to the gays, have now mobilized, and they're not exactly rushing to McNally's defense.

In response to a post on "State of the Art," a group blog by the editors of Pop Photo magazine, which laid out what is known of the case pretty straightforwardly, a commenter first claims to have spoken to "a gay contact" at the Times, and this gay told him that the "slur" was said as part of a joke, and the person who got offended ran with it because he had gotten passed over for an award.

Okay, that's an interpretation we haven't heard yet!

But then there's this:

Michele McNally is everything that is wrong with The New York Times. She was not the first pick to have the job, there were many others asked before her... [some stuff about her (alleged!) drinking habits and her divorce omitted here.] She makes sexual comments that make her male staffers feel uncomfortable and she has been known to break union rules and go against the Times harrassment policy. She rules with an iron fist and no one will go against her judgement in fear of retribution. She hires 20 -something magazine editors who kissed her ass in the past , were given jobs at the Times in which they are not qualified for and have no newspaper experience . They constantly ask the old regime how a newspaper works. The staff is predominately female and she revels in her "good ole Gal" network. She rules with ignorance and has proved it constanly with her stupidity in both her staff meetings and the Page One meetings.

It goes on, but you get the point.

So with McNally not having yet spoken publicly about the incident, not like she ever will, and the New York Times keeping mum (wasn't there supposed to be some big meeting the other day about it?), it seems like those parties are just hoping that it'll go away, just like everything else. But will the gays, and the photogs, and the gay photogs, let that happen?

Photographer Defends Michele McNally [State of the Art]
Earlier: The 'Times' Gay Slur Incident: The Gays Mobilize