Doug PollardTranscript - Harley Dennett Sep 9
LGBT Journos met in San Francisco
Freshly Doug's Washington correspondent Harley Dennett is the former lead writer on the Sydney Star Observer, so as well as reporting on US GLBTI issues he also keeps an eye on things here in Australia - like the NSW Adoption Bill.
DOUG: We’ve got Harley Dennett over in the USA, good morning Harley.
HARLEY: Good morning, Doug.
DOUG: So, you’ve been hobnobbing with your fellow, gay journos in San Francisco?
HARLEY: It’s what we do best. That and drinking champagne.
DOUG: [laughs] (and)How was it, how many people were there?
HARLEY: There’s(sic) about 250 but to count all the gay journos in America apparently it comes to about 1300. This is(sic) the numbers from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists’ Association - - -
DOUG: Right.
HARLEY: - - - the US one, obviously.
DOUG: Yes, yes.
HARLEY: (and)That’s really quite an impressive figure when you consider in Australia we probably have 25?
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: Maybe.
DOUG: We’re a select breed aren’t we?
HARLEY: We are and we all know each other.
DOUG: [laughs] Inevitably, we share a contact book.
HARLEY: Yes. So – m’mm, it’s interesting meeting all of these people. Because we’ve got the people from the gay media - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
HARLEY: - - - the media that focuses exclusively on the LGBT community and then you’ve got heaps of people from the mainstream media, from radio and television. That includes all the people that produce those very gay-friendly shows like the Bravo Desperate Housewives things through to news desk reporters that are playing straight job in effect. Whilst still covering gay issues like Prop(sic) 8 over in California. So there are quite a few different issues that they have to deal with - - -
DOUG: M’mm, is this something that you have a lot of in the States where you have mainstream media but they have a gay reporter in the sense of a reporter for gay issues?
HARLEY: M’mm.
DOUG: That’s something we haven’t got to here, yet. Have we?
HARLEY: No, although sometimes it gets grouped up in legal affairs, sometimes it gets grouped up in city affairs or community affairs. It’s not quite the same thing as having somebody who actually, outreaches to the gay and lesbian community and makes contact. Which is why I think in Australia we really still need a gay radio station, we still need gay papers. We still need those blogs, to fill-in the gaps - - -
DOUG: Yes.
HARLEY: - - - between issues.
DOUG: Yes, until The Age appoints a gay correspondent and until The Australian does, other than Christopher Pearson, [laughs] we’re not going to get very far are we, on the mainstream.
HARLEY: No and I think the NLGJA – horrible acronym, I know - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
HARLEY: - - - has had a bit of an ark with that in itself, when it began 20-years ago journalists weren’t out in the newsroom. They hid that part of their lives from their work lives so they couldn’t go to their editors and say: I want to cover all the gay issues that are going on at the moment, ‘because that is a personal interest and I have great contacts’. They couldn’t do that - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
HARLEY: The initial conferences they had 20-years ago were all about: ‘am I going to be out in the newsroom’ – and – ‘should I use the fact that I know other people who are gay who also aren’t necessarily out, should I out them because it helps having out people in the public eye’. Like, sportspeople or politicians who are casting antigay laws and now, 20-years later we’re still talking about it because we’ve still got so many particularly in the United States but also British government ministers, New South Wales transport ministers – m’mm, who have been outed by media against their will.
DOUG: Yeah.
HARLEY: (and)In some cases there’s valid reasons for it, if you’ve got the – if they’re doing something that’s particularly antigay or they’re – you know Christian Ministers for instance. Then you’ve got some innocent bystanders as well.
DOUG: Yes, outing’s always a very fraught topic I find – I mean, I do feel it’s justified in certain circumstances. The circumstances have to come down to the integrity of the individual reporter doing the outing, at the end of the day and that’s bit of shaky ground to build on. M’mm, I don’t think it’s right to out people just for the sake of outing them. Unless they’re actively working against us is my principle.
HARLEY: (and)That’s a tension that’s still going on because we’ve got lots of bloggers particularly in America who are very keen to out as many people as possible and that includes actors - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
HARLEY: - - - who it could potentially, harm their career. So, we’ve got a tension between a new breed of journalist who are very eager to play an active role in changing the course of dialogue in that respect by calling people out and then you’ve got the more cautious, traditional journalists who really want to wait ‘til there’s absolute proof and they want to check that there’s a public interest element to it as well and that’s always fraughtto determine what actually is. We had one particularly well-known gay author and talk show host, Michelangelo Signorile who wrote: Queer in America – m’mm, about 20-years ago. About outing – and he came back to re-examine whether or not we should just go back to calling it “reporting - - -”
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: - - - believe it or not, we’re so mainstream now that we shouldn’t focus so much on that and in the same way that we would report other, personal details family details on public figures if it helps us understand their background and their character and how they approach issues.
DOUG: So, basically saying it’s become such a mainstream issue it’s really a non-issue, now? In a sense.
HARLEY: Yeah.
DOUG: I think we may have crossed over to that boundary in the States. I’m not sure if we’re anywhere near it, over here, at this point. Although I think we’ve had judgments that’ve said – no, it can’t be wrong because you can’t insult somebody by calling them “gay” anymore.
HARLEY: That’s a legal approach to the issue - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
HARLEY: - - - and I don’t think that we as human beings necessarily approach it that way anymore, do we? As in do we look at things in such a legalistic “is this defamation” way as opposed to – well, some of us knew that David Campbell was gay
DOUG: Yeah, I think we may have crossed over to that boundary in the States. I’m not sure if we’re anywhere near it over here, at this point? Although, I think we’ve had judgments that’ve said “no, it can’t be wrong because you can’t insult somebody by calling them gay, anymore”.
HARLEY: That’s a legal approach to the issue - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
HARLEY: - - - and I don’t think we can necessarily approach it that way anymore, do we? I mean, do we look at things in such a legalistic – is this defamation, kind of way as opposed to: some of us knew that David Campbell was gay but it was never relevant.
DOUG: Yeah – well, you have to think about the defamation angle when you’ve got programme managers breathing down your neck saying: ‘be careful what you say about so-and-so’. Let’s leave that one for the moment because I know you want to talk a bit about LGBTI aging issues - - -
HARLEY: Yeah.
DOUG: - - - obviously, something dear to my heart having just turned 60 – m’mm - - -
HARLEY: Congratulations.
DOUG: This is an invisible issue a lot of the time, isn’t it – I mean, I’ve tried to put it on the agenda for obvious reasons. How’s it play in the US, does it get coverage?
HARLEY: It does get covered but it gets covered by mainstream press more than it gets covered by gay press and I think that’s quite an interesting thing to – phenomenon that we’re seeing, there. Because you would expect that the LGBT community would want the LGBT media to be focussing on their issues and this is particularly an issue for the LGBT media and something that I learnt at this conference but I didn’t know before, is that it’s even more so for people who are transgender. Because you’ve got a lot more issues about their bodies that are – m’mm, one transgender person came and told us that the assistants who are in the home with her didn’t want to touch her body. That can be such a demoralising thing that I don’t think anybody of any age should have to deal with. But particularly if they’re in a vulnerable position and they need that assistance. So, the gay media came under rather severe criticism for focussing only on issues and stories that involve young, pretty people with healthy bodies and - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
HARLEY: - - - lots of sex appeal. We can clearly see – like, how it’s arrived at that and it’s a criticism that you could probably level at the media as a whole, ‘cause it focuses on the shallow. But this is something that needs to be addressed now because it’s reached such an important point in our community’s history and lifespan that if we don’t deal with it now we’ll have run out of time to deal with it. So, they’re talking about whether or not homes should be built exclusively for the gay and lesbian community or whether or not they should do outreach programmes with more mainstream homes and whether or not they should have services that come into peoples’ own home - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
HARLEY: - - - and find ways of including to them in that way.
DOUG: Yeah, it’s definitely a growing issue here and attention is starting to be paid to it but I do understand what you’re saying about transgender people that they have it tougher than we do in a lot of ways and they tend to get left behind. We are trying to improve that situation but it’s not easy. Especially when so many politicians are so completely ignorant on the subject - - -
HARLEY: [laughs]
DOUG: - - - and also because a lot of the reaction tends to be: it’s a tiny minority we need not bother. M’mm, they don’t say that but that’s what it comes down to a variant I suppose, on: there’re no votes to it. But anyway - - -
HARLEY: But I think it’s our job as journalists, to challenge them when they appeal to that logic, that it’s just a small part of the community we shouldn’t deal with - - -
DOUG: It’s just as important depending on the numbers - - -
HARLEY: - - - them.
DOUG: It’s just as important regardless of the numbers.
HARLEY: Yes.
DOUG: [laughs] I mean, that’s not an issue – look, we haven’t got a lot of time left, Harley but I know you still have some connections – you’ve still kept your contacts going over here, in Australia. Despite the fact that you’re now seconded over there with your military husband. You’ve been following what’s been happening with the New South Wales Adoption Bill, haven’t you?
HARLEY: Yes and my sources tell me that it’s not actually as good as it sounds they’re pushing for same-sex adoption in New South Wales. It’s quite a cynical ploy that they’ve discovered, through focus groups. That focus groups – we all know now that Labor relies entirely on focus groups - - -
DOUG: Yes.
HARLEY: - - - for policy decisions. It’s discovered by putting adoption and soon, surrogacy – I believe that’s been announced, New South Wales will be bringing up surrogacy as well – by putting them to conscience votes it humanises the Labor MPs and makes them seem less like factional warriors or factional drones. That’s playing out pretty well in these focus groups, apparently and it makes the Liberals look bad. So if you consider that New South Wales in particular and many other parts of the country, Labor is doing really poorly. They’re going to be - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
HARLEY: - - - some of these things. It appears to our advantage but it’s not really about us.
DOUG: Okay – so, bring on conscience votes on same-sex marriage, it’ll make Labor look nice [laughs] - - -
HARLEY: Yeah, I don’t think it’ll work at a federal level at marriage but certainly at state level, that information [indistinct] researched - - -
DOUG: Well, thanks for that Harley. We’re going to have to call it a day there. Thank you very much for calling in and we’ll speak to you again, soon.
HARLEY: Will do.
