The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) created a new award to honor journalists who “go the extra mile to ensure that all Americans are aware of the diversity within the LGBT community, as well as the unique struggles gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people face in the United States and around the world.”
The first recipient of the Randy Shilts Award was NPR "Tell Me More" host Michel Martin, who worked as a reporter for ABC and The Wall Street Journal before joining NPR. A self-described “married, heterosexual, Christian mother,” Martin told Gail Shister of TV Newser the struggle for gay equality “is one of the most important civil rights movements of our time.” Gay rights “is also one of the most important human rights stories of our time. I don’t understand why we wouldn’t do those stories.” (Emphasis in the original.) NPR is an "ally," they boast:
Martin was chosen as the inaugural recipient “because she goes out of her way to tell our stories, and she teaches us about aspects of our own community,” says Matthew E. Berger, co-chair of the Washington, D.C., event. “That’s unique for an ally.”
NPR senior business editor Marilyn Geewax, who presented the Shilts Award to Martin, describes her colleague as “an incredibly brave and perceptive journalist. She takes seriously her commitment to diversity and to getting people to talk to each other.”
NPR employees easily rejoice in the misconception that conservatives think the "real America" is some white, straight, Christian country. The record number of openly gay congressional candidates elected two weeks ago (now up to six) “should be a wake-up call, on a number of levels, that the real America can be found in lots of places,” Martin said, and Americans who are surprised by those results "don't seem to understand who lives in this country....The real America doesn't have one look or one religion or one skin color or one sexual orientation. People who get that are the ones who are going to be on the leading edge."
This is how NPR describes liberal advocacy journalism: on the "leading edge" of societal evolution.
