by Chuck Colbert
But make no mistake. That White House celebration, while paying tribute to the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, was also an exercise in LGBT media and gay community damage control. For the first six months, the president exerted little effort to advance LGBT rights. Increasingly, LGBT activists grew impatient, voicing dismay with Obama and his party for their inertia on everything from the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) to that of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
For some, dismay gave way to anger, which finally erupted all over the blogosphere. A flashpoint occurred on June 11, 2009, when Obama’s Justice Department filed a legal brief defending DOMA, causing gay activist and blogger John Aravosis (www.americablog.com) to go ballistic, his scathing criticisms flying all over cyberspace as Facebook and Twitter amplified the outrage.
The president’s remarks at last year’s Gay Pride celebration helped to mitigate some of the anger. “I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough,” Obama said, according to Lisa Keen, chief correspondent of Keen News Services, who reported on the president’s comments in LGBT publications nationwide. At the same time, the president urged the gay community to judge him “not by the promises I’ve made, but by the promises that my administration keeps.”
Later on in October, the president made much the same appeal to the LGBT community in his keynote remarks – covered widely by LGBT media – at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual black-tie dinner in Washington, D.C., held on the eve of the National Equality March.
Mindful of some progress between then and now, what can be said of the Obama administration’s relationship with LGBT media? What about gay journalists’ access to White House officials to ask questions about issues of importance to the community? And what kind of a job does the White House think LGBT media are doing?
Read more after the jump.
“My overall impression is that [Obama] treats gay media the way he’s treating the gay community,” said Keen. “He’s keeping us at a stiff arm’s distance, not saying to go away or leave me alone, but to stand back over there at some distance. ‘I’m going to do what I can for you. I am not against you. I know you have needs. [Still,] I’ll come to you when I want to say something.’”
Kerry Eleveld, the Advocate’s Washington correspondent, offered additional insight. “I get the sense that the Obama administration came [into office] with a certain approach to the media,” she said, “which is getting their message directly to people without making news through traditional media and to some extent bypassing them.”
Relying on technology, that approach enables the White House to tap into its vast network of e-mail supporters and donors, numbering in the millions, through targeted e-mail blasts, social networking contacts, and cell phone text messages.
Eleveld was the only gay-press journalist to conduct a sit-down, face-to-face interview with then-candidate Obama (an exclusive posted April 10, 2008, on Advocate.com). Eleveld still "gets a sense" that Obama officials "respond to pressure even if it's not as far as people wanted [him to go] or wasn't [soon] enough," she said. At critical junctures, the media pressing is "likely to get a response. That was true during the campaign and is true today."
For his part, Mark Segal, the publisher of Philadelphia Gay News (PGN), sums up Obama's gay media relationship with one word. "Fair," Segal said, "in the sense that he has credentialed members of gay media at his news conferences, and LGBT questions get asked during the briefings. People are invited to all his stops wherever he goes." In other words, Obama "does outreach," said Segal. "That never happened that I know of during Bush or Clinton.”
Shortly after his nomination, Segal interviewed Obama over the telephone (Sept. 16, 2008). PGN posted an audio version on its website. The Gay History Project provided written transcripts for publication in weekly LGBT publications across the country.
"I think my disappointment," Segal said, "is with LGBT media for not looking at the written word, or in this case spoken word, of Barack Obama," pointing to the point in the interview when Obama said that he "would not" end the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy by attaching a signing order to a military appropriations bill, the way President Bush used such an order to change military rules and regulations.
"The reason,” said Obama at the time, "is because I want to make sure that when we revert [DADT], it's gone through a process, and we've built in a consensus or at least clarity of what my expectations are, so that it works." Obama also said that "working through a process" would ensure "getting the Joint Chiefs of Staff clear in terms of what our priorities are going to be."
For Segal, those comments provided early insight into how would-be President Obama would dismantle the now 17-year-old ban, which is both federal law and military policy. "Looking back at this interview," Segal said, "Obama's doing everything he said he would do," pointing to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ Pentagon working group's process report due by Dec. 1.
"One the other hand," said Segal, "some journalists and bloggers are expecting him to do something that he didn't say he would do," referring to calls for a moratorium or issuing a "stop/loss" order to halt discharging gay service members for "homosexual conduct."
Nonetheless, opportunistic is how Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff characterized the president’s rapport with LGBT media. “He interacts with us when he needs us, when it’s politically expedient,” said Naff, who was quick to point out some bright spots. “There are certain people in the administration who are absolutely terrific,” he said, naming for example Shin Inouye, a media specialty director for LGBT outlets. “Shin is not only responsive but also proactive. He gives us tips all the time, things that are coming up, things that we might find interesting." Naff acknowledged that other gay officials within the administration “are very responsive, helpful, and have facilitated terrific access. There are others who are not. It depends on the person.”
On one point, everybody agrees. The contrast between the Obama White House and that of George W. Bush is as different as night and day. “We were completely frozen out,” explained Naff. When Bush officials revoked press access for LGBT media, for example, “it made it exceedingly difficult to get information.”
There is also agreement on another point. LGBT journalists and publishers all feel very strongly that President Obama ought to speak directly to the gay community by granting interviews with LGBT media outlets, as he has already done for other minority groups, including Native Americans, Hispanics, and African Americans, through their specialty media.
But just when and if the president’s LGBT media interviews happen is anybody’s guess.
“I have no updates on what specific interviews the president will conduct during his time in office,” said the White House’s Inouye in an e-mail. “Generally speaking, I think the LGBT media have done a good job of covering what is happening in Washington." In some instances, however, “Coverage of the steps the president has taken that don’t require legislative action are not given the same level of coverage as the steps that require changes to the law. I think the community – and the media – need to understand we’re making progress with every step we take.”
