The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) began its second day on Friday, September 3, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in San Francisco with Morning Plenary with author Armistead Maupin. The session was moderated by longtime and recently retired KPIX-TV reporter Hank Plante. The conversation with the Tales of the City author was followed by a book signing.
There were no return of the hotel picketers that greeted convention attendees on Thursday.
Three breakout sessions followed the morning plenary: Digital News: Covering the Breaking Story!, Real World: What to Expect After School, and Niche Markets and Niche Communities.
The digital news breakout session was moderated by Chuck Holmes of National Public Radio.
Holmes said that few people listen to audio from their web site, but that the site was busiest during business hours and peaking around noon. Holmes said that was because people view the Internet most often while at work. He noted that an editor once quipped that their Web site had to be more interesting than what they were doing at work.
Holmes joined NPR in 2009 and was the foreign editor for Cox Newspapers. Holmes said that he was as “old school as they come” but that the digital media was critical for any news outlet to reach the public.
NPR has 1.2 million followers on Facebook and that NPR had a team of three people who work on their social media unit. He said that while they Tweet virtually everything on Twitter, NPR is more judicious about what to put on Facebook. He said that they generally put feature stories rather than breaking news on the site.
Fewer than 40% of people who visit NPR’s site go directly to the site, most, Holmes said, are referred by other sites or from search engines.
Five million listeners per week listen to NPR over smart phones. Holmes said that some at NPR call the iPhone the new radio. For a time NPR’s iPhone app was Apple’s most downloaded app.
Holmes said that food, lifestyle and “weird” stories do best on the social media
Friday’s luncheon planetary was a live broadcast of the Michelangelo Signorile Sirius Out Q radio show. The topic was “20 Years Later: outing and The Ethics of Reporting on Sexual Orientation of Public Figures.”
Signorile noted that he first raised the issue of outing 20 years ago when he outed late billionaire Malcom Forbes in a magazine article. Time Magazine covered the controversy and later branded the term “outing.”
The panelists included Mike Rogers of BlogActive, who was best known for his outing of public figures LZ Granderson of ESPN as well as a CNN contributor, Michael Triplett a contributor to Mediaite.
The panelists agreed that there was a responsibility for reporters to ask the sexual orientation of people like former George Bush aid Kel Melmen, who recently came out.
I think we should stop asking people if they are gay because the lie,” said Rogers, who added that Ken Melmin bought a $3 million + condo in New York’s gay Chelsea district before he said he first knew that he was gay.
Signorile brought up the case of federal Judge Vaughn Walker who ruled that California’s antigay marriage Proposition 8 was unconstitutional. The San Francisco Chornicle reported that him being gay was an “open secret” despite the fact that he did not say directly that he was gay.
“He may be gay, but he’s not openly gay,” said Triplett who said he was babbled that an NPR radio reporter reported that Walker was “openly gay.” He asked the reporter about it and the reporter said that he “had heard about it on from the LA Times.”
Signorile brought up the case about Elena Kagin being reported on a CBS News blog as being “openly gay” when she was not.
Triplett said that the White House created the story of Kagan being gay by denying it as it it were a horrible thing if Kagan was gay.
Granderson suggested that the White House should have simply issued a statement that “it didn’t matter.” Rogers questioned why Supreme Court Judge Sotomoyer. Was not also questioned about whether she was a lesbian.
“She lived in the village for 30 years as a single woman,” you do the math, said Rogers.
In the question section an audience member questioned why NLGJA did not take a position on California’s antigay marriage initiative, Proposition 8. Anderson and Triplett said the agreed with the policy while Rogers said he disagreed. While Anderson and Triplett said it was important for journalists to not create any appearance of bias, Rogers said it was a “no brainer” for an organization that supports equality to be opposed to a ban on gay marriage.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper was brought up by an audience member who cited the Out Magazine cover that featured him and actor Jodie Foster. Signorole questioned Cooper’s response to that question by saying that he doesn’t want to create the appearance of being biased when covering stories in part of the world that aver very antigay. He suggested that it would be like an African American not being seen as being able to fairly cover a civil rights story.
The subject of reporting on sexual orientation of sports figures was brought up by a caller who said he was disappointed that sports figures seldom come out when they are still playing on a team.
Anderson said that he was “so over” sports figures who come out after they are already out of sports. He cited the case of British basketball star John DeArmichi who came out after he stopped playing and noted an article he wrote about it that Arechi was not please about.
Signore said it was like a1950 myth that people can be destroyed by being outed. He cited the cases of former Dick Cheney aid Pete Williams, who is currently an NBC reporter and actor Neil Patrick Harris.
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