GAY JOURNALISTS, OUT IN THE NEWSROOM - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• MARCIA GAY HARN LOOKS BACK AT SVU, THE NEWSROOM, CO BLACK AND MORE
• THE NEWSROOM: CONVERSATNS ABOUT PRI, INTY, AND FDG THE GAY BARS
• GAY JOURNALISTS, OUT IN THE NEWSROOM
• 'THE NEWSROOM' NEW CHARACTERS: MARCIA GAY HARN, CONSTANCE ZIMMER AND MORE CAST ADDNS IN SEASON 2
• MARCIA GAY HARN JOS 'THE NEWSROOM' AND MORE CASTG NEWS

MARCIA GAY HARN LOOKS BACK AT SVU, THE NEWSROOM, CO BLACK AND MORE

In 2010 when I was ployed to Iraq, I had to lie about who I was bee I'm a gay soldier and I didn't want to lose my job.

My qutn is, unr one of your princi, do you tend to circumvent the progrs that's been ma for gay and lbian soldiers the ary? And then there’s 1990’s Kojak: None So Bld, a TV movie that Marcia Gay Harn… kda rells? The Newsroom: Conversatns about Pri, inty, and fdg the gay bars.

Soon after Deb Price joed the Detro News 1989, she wrote a piece about gay people beg expelled om the ary, an issue that was barely a blip on the journalistic radar screen.

THE NEWSROOM: CONVERSATNS ABOUT PRI, INTY, AND FDG THE GAY BARS

"I did a lot of gay stori, but part of me felt fensive about , " she says.

I was always aaid someone would say, 'Geez, Deb, how e you're wrg so many gay stori? Last sprg she beme the first staffer on a big-cy daily to wre a regular lumn on gay matters, which has been picked up by dozens of other papers.

"It's an asset for a newspaper to have openly gay journalists the same way that havg Ain Amerins or Hispanics or people wh disabili is an asset. " As gay issu have bee the stuff of ont-page ntroversy, homosexuals are emergg as an creasgly visible force newsrooms around the untry. As the big gay rights prott unfolds here this weekend, many of the 700 members of the Natnal Lbian and Gay Journalists' Associatn are nvergg on the cy as well.

GAY JOURNALISTS, OUT IN THE NEWSROOM

Durg the last gay prott Washgton 1987, "I went nowhere near the Mall, " says Juan Palomo, a Hoton Post lumnist. The ia that a group of gay journalists n meet an open nventn, three years ago that would have been unheard of. Andrew Sullivan, edor of the New Republic, which is publishg a special edn on gay issu this week, says he stggl to addrs two disparate dienc that lack a mon language.

For gay reporters, 's so visceral for to wre about that we tend to censor ourselv.

"I thk 's possible to wre a piece that meets the Tim's standards of fairns, and yet has a ltle b of voice that shows you're a gay man. " But the sharpt divisns have emerged wh the gay muny self.

'THE NEWSROOM' NEW CHARACTERS: MARCIA GAY HARN, CONSTANCE ZIMMER AND MORE CAST ADDNS IN SEASON 2

Some gay journalists nounced Sullivan after he wrote about a gap between HIV-posive people and those who do not have the vis. "This subject is so divisive on all levels that be a mefield for journalists to cross, and even more so for gay journalists bee your own team laid the m, " he says.

Schmalz says he "took enormo heat" om homosexuals last week when the Tim reported on a survey which only 1 percent of rponnts acknowledged beg gay -- even though he had nothg to do wh the story. "I get far more cricism om the left, om gay groups and AIDS groups who say that my piec are too unrstated, that I'm not shoutg enough, " Schmalz says. " Michelangelo Signorile, who has attempted to out several proment people agast their will, is often cril of other gay journalists.

" When he was a publicist for film pani, Signorile says, he would feed gossip lumnists tidbs about gay entertaers, only to see them scribed as "bachelors. " "Homosexualy was taboo the gossip lumns, " he says.

MARCIA GAY HARN JOS 'THE NEWSROOM' AND MORE CASTG NEWS

" As recently as five or six years ago, many gay journalists were nvced, rightly or wrongly, that their reers would be ed if they acknowledged their sexual orientatn. In 1989, the Amerin Society of Newspaper Edors asked Leroy Aarons, then the executive edor of the Oakland Tribune, to nduct a nfintial survey of gay journalists. Aarons had been out at his own paper, but when he prented the survey fdgs at a nference the followg year, he ed the ocsn to announce his homosexualy to his peers.