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GLAAD President Neil Giuliano said the gay media watchdog continues to work behind the scenes to help direct media coverage of gay issues, such as the recent scandal involving former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.).
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When the media feasted on a buffet of gay stories cooked up by the Mark Foley scandal — from reports about a lavender mafia existing among closeted Republican congressional staffers, to numerous conservative commentators linking homosexuality and pedophilia — the nation’s preeminent gay media watchdog was missing from the table.
Leaders of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation suggest that their absence reflects the organization’s effectiveness and evolution. Instead of talking about the news over a dinner table, GLAAD leaders said they now work mainly in the kitchen, helping dictate how news is prepared.
“We’ve been very engaged in [the Foley] story since it first broke,” said GLAAD President Neil Giuliano, adding that the organization focused on making sure journalists had the right information and sources to “delink” homosexuality and pedophilia.
“GLAAD was making sure they had the credible scientific sources to counter all of the anti-gay claims,” Giuliano said.
But while GLAAD officials say they were working behind the scenes as the Foley scandal erupted, some, including former GLAAD staffers, were looking for any sign of life from the gay group.
“Frankly, I’ve been waiting for some type of rebuttal, some type of response [to the defamatory media coverage],” said Steve Spurgeon, who worked as GLAAD’s communications director for three years until 2002.
The lone mention of the Foley scandal on GLAAD’s website was posted Wednesday in a round-up of Virginia newspaper editorials on an upcoming same-sex marriage ballot initiative. Prior to Oct. 18, there were no Foley references on GLAAD’s site, and the group had not sent out any of its “action alerts” urging supporters to respond to defamatory or inflammatory coverage.
Cathy Renna, who spent 14 years as GLAAD’S news media director, said GLAAD appeared to be AWOL during “the biggest gay story since marriage.”
“I really hate to say that I’m kind of confused and disappointed that GLAAD has not been involved in getting the community educated … about some very disturbing content in the media coverage,” Renna said. “This is part of the core mission of GLAAD — it’s a huge national news story.”
GLAAD’s reluctance to send out action alerts or otherwise draw attention to poor media coverage was to avoid raising the platform of those influencing the poor coverage, namely conservative groups like the Family Research Council, said Sean Lund, director of messaging and communication strategy at GLAAD.
Instead of directly responding to anti-gay rhetoric in the Foley coverage, Lund said GLAAD attempted to convince journalists and producers not to “validate that message by giving it the media platform.”
“If you look at the arc of the story, [GLAAD’s work] really resulted in the anti-gay pedophilia rhetoric evaporating within the first week,” Lund said.
When the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal arose a few years ago, GLAAD was intensely involved because the church’s hierarchy attempted to scapegoat gay priests, Lund said. By comparison, Lund said that only right-wing fringe groups — not Republican leaders — tried to exploit the gay angle of the Foley controversy.
In fact, leading conservative commentators such as Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan and talk show host Michael Savage, the target of a previous GLAAD campaign, also made sweeping generalizations or inflammatory comments in the wake of Foley’s resignation.
Renna said she also sees correlations between the Foley fallout and the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, which she spent about three years monitoring and responding to. Both are not simply media issues that warrant a response, but extended campaigns GLAAD should be waging to ensure gay people are not misrepresented, Renna said.
“To me, the disappointment is that it is the nation’s only GLBT media group, and folks look to GLAAD for information on how to react and mobilize,” Renna said. “That’s just not been there, and that makes me very sad.”
GLAAD’s discreet response to the Foley scandal isn’t a signal that the organization is shifting its mission or priorities, Giuliano said. The group continues monitoring media coverage and working with journalists, as well as attempting to give everyday gay men and lesbians the tools they need to get their stories included in media coverage, he said.
“We do both every single day,” Giuliano said. “They both are growing, and they both are continuing to emerge as important aspects of our work.”
GLAAD is engaged in an ongoing “Announcing Equality” campaign to get newspapers to cover gay and lesbian couples, has produced several public service announcements encouraging tolerance of gay people, and has done considerable work lobbying media organizations to give more coverage to people of faith who support ...
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