Diversity hits and misses, how media outlets cover diversity within the LGBT community was the topic of one of the plenary sessions at the annual National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association conference Aug. 22 at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago.
Cathy Renna, senior vice-president at Target Cue, served as the moderator. Panelists were Wade Davis II ( executive director of the You Can Play Project and former NFL player ), Natalie Moore ( WBEZ South Side bureau reporter ) and Jose Antonio Vargas ( journalist, filmmaker and immigration activist ).
Vargas said he has never felt like he fit within the mold of the mainstream press and as a young kid he resisted his gay identity. After Matthew Shepard was murdered, Vargas came out as gay and 12 years later he came out as undocumented. Vargas said he experienced some hostility via a text message from a white gay journalist friend after he crashed a Mitt Romney rally in Iowa in 2012 with a sign that said "I'm an American without papers." The text message said "why are you pulling a stunt like this" and that angered Vargas.
"I don't think we are at the point in which newsrooms understand LGBT issues but I think that LGBT reporters and media don't understand the level of complexity required to really cover our diversity in a way that is as inclusive as possible in the areas of class, immigration, race, ethnicity and gender, and I think we have to do better," said Vargas.
"Over the past several years I've been pretty annoyed at the 'Black people are homophobic' story that keeps resurfacing especially as marriage equality campaigns are happening around the country," said Moore. Moore explained that just like other groups there is diversity among the African-American community when it comes to LGBT issues, but the majority of the time the only narrative that gets told is the one about homophobic African-American clergy. Moore pointed out that there are churches like Trinity in Chicago that have LGBT ministries and those stories are underreported.
During the push for marriage equality in Illinois, Moore said she was asked to do a story about the issue as it pertains to the African-American community and she resisted but lost the battle. Moore explained that she consulted with Kim Hunt, executive director of Affinity Community Services, and out of that meeting emerged a different story than the one she was assigned, "Is the face of marriage equality too white?" that resulted in her winning a National Association of Black Journalists award.
"When I look around this room I say wow we're having a conversation about diversity and the people in this room aren't really that diverse and that makes me sad but it also makes me very hopeful that this conversation is happening," said Davis.
Davis said he likes to do coalition building and solidarity work and not just focus on homophobia in sports. "Homophobia doesn't exist in isolation. It's a byproduct of sexism but we don't want to have that conversation because we live in a very sexist and misogynistic world," said Davis.
Davis shared that he got sick to his stomach when he saw all his friends with equal signs on their Facebook pages when Prop 8 was reversed and part of DOMA was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court when just a few days earlier the Voting Rights Act was gutted by the same court. Living in isolation is not an option, said Davis. He explained that he wouldn't expect Vargas to work with him if he did nothing about the immigration issue and conversely he wouldn't expect Moore to work with him if he did nothing about poverty among African-American women in the United States.
Renna asked what the media could be doing and Davis said that they need to reframe and debunk myths that are out there about specific communities. Davis said the most important story in sports is out WNBA Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner and no one is telling that story.
Moore said it is important to broaden your network of sources and own your storytelling mistakes when they happen. Vargas said that social media platforms have changed the game and forced certain stories to the forefront that might not have gotten exposure in mainstream news outlets.
As for story ideas, Vargas said he would like to see articles showcasing "how the young diverse immigrant community is using the African-American and LGBT civil-rights movements as a way to free themselves."
Moore shared that in order to find new stories reporters should "have coffee with five different groups that you've never met with before or talked to," while Davis said he wants to see more stories about Griner, why no one talked about the fact that Jason Collins said he was Black first when he announced to the world that he was gay, and "how the language [like coming out of the closet] that we use around being LGBT is actually adding shame and stigma to our own lives."
See www.nlgja.org, www.youcanplayproject.org, www.wbez.org/users/nmoore-0 and www.defineamerican.com for more information.
