NLGJA Insight

From left, Dale Smith, Canada's Xtra national correspondent, Kerry Eleveld, The Advocate's Washington correspondent and Kevin Naff, Washington Blade editor, discuss LGBT issues in political coverage Thursday at the "Washington Goes Lavender" session. Blogger Mike Rogers, at right, of blogACTIVE.com, moderated.

By Anthony Williams

Insight Staff Writer

The LGBT press has gained unprecedented access to White House news briefings and Obama administration officials over the past eight months, but is sometimes accused of being apologists for the president.

A panel of journalists working for gay media discussed their reporting styles, sources and reputations Thursday at a session on political reporting at the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association convention in Montreal.

Though she has only been attending White House briefings since April, Kerry Eleveld, Washington correspondent for The Advocate magazine, said her questions at times can drive the day’s news.

“It’s my job to ask the LGBT question in the briefing room,” Eleveld said. “I don’t think of myself as an activist, but there’s no escaping the fact that asking them questions they don’t want to hear is a form of activism.”

Eleveld recalled how then-Sen. Barack Obama began to reach out to the LGBT press during the 2008 campaign. Obama’s campaign was hesitant to have an Advocate cover story so soon after Hillary Clinton’s, she said. But when his LGBT support began to waver, the campaign signed on for an interview.

Eleveld said access to Obama was good for both Obama and The Advocate

“They came to me, and I was happy to be there for them,” Eleveld said.

Eleveld and Kevin Naff, editor of the Washington Blade, said they knew at times that their outlets were being used to push a political message, but if Obama wants to talk, they’ll talk. Naff said they even receive calls from Obama staffers to tip them off on something that may be noteworthy — attention he said was unheard of for the LGBT press in the past.

“Like with [Obama’s] speech last night, someone called to say there would be a lesbian cancer survivor there,” Naff said in an interview. “It seems like a small thing, but that helps us get into the debate on something like health care.”

Eleveld said she remembered getting a call from John Berry, Office of Personnel Management director, who is the highest ranking gay official in Obama’s administration. Berry specifically wanted to talk about LGBT issues and the president’s timetable.

“He wanted to give an overall outlook as to what would happen legislatively, and it was all on the record,” she said after the panel discussion.

Dale Smith represented gay Canadian press as the national correspondent for Xtra. Smith said gay rights struggles don’t make it into his news too often, as most debates over equal rights were won in Canada years ago.

But he also said that, unlike in the United States, conservatives in Canada will back away from gay rights issues leading up to elections, even though it’s known where they stand, because anti-gay rhetoric can work against them.

When an audience member asked whether it was possible for same-sex marriage rights or more to be repealed in Canada, he cautiously said yes, if there was a conservative majority.

Mike Rogers, a blogger who is known for outing Washington elected officials and their staff members, moderated the conversation. Rogers turned the conversation to reporters’ policies on outing politicians.

Naff said he doesn’t consider it “outing” anymore and said that journalists who are about reporting facts shouldn’t be skittish about reporting a public official’s sexual orientation.

Eleveld said outing never motivated her as a journalist, citing the years it can take to establish what’s needed to prove whether someone is gay.

Smith said he doesn’t out people. Rather, he said that sex scandals and outing people are almost unheard of in Canada. The press mostly stays out of politicians’ personal lives, he said, even when a Parliament member attended a gay pride festival with “a twink on his arm.”

“We have different expectations of them,” Smith said in an interview. “We don’t have politicians clenching on Bibles and their family values. Some do, but it’s less of a platform here.”

Fred Kuhr, NLGJA convention programming co-chair, said there’s another level of celebrity culture in the United States with its politicians and their families, from the Obamas to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and her family.

“Here there’s no celebrity system for that,” said Kuhr, who works for Press Pass Q in Toronto. “Canada doesn’t have that kind of media presence.”