To celebrate Pride Month, the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, Windy City Times and the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame held a joint “Pride and Power: A Celebration of Legacy, Voice and Visibility” panel discussion June 8 at the Illinois Holocaust Museum, 9603 Woods Dr. in Skokie.
Panelists included Philadelphia Gay News founder, author and Stonewall Uprising participant Mark Segal; Press Forward Executive Director and Windy City Times co-founder and owner Tracy Baim and Chicago Tribune columnist and ABC-7 Chicago political analyst Laura Washington. Illinois Holocaust Museum Trustee Denise Foy served as the event moderator.
Baim, Foy and Washington have all been inducted into Chicago’s LGBT Hall of Fame.
Foy asked when their voices had been challenged by outside forces. Baim said her journalism professors were “paternalist and unrealistic in what journalism was” and she has always known there is “no such thing as objectivity” in journalism since one’s lived experience affects how they report on people and issues. If they deny that, Baim added, their reporting will suffer. Her largest barrier for entry into a journalism career was due to her out lesbian status. But Baim’s reporter mother told her about the publication Gay Life when she came back to Chicago; that was Baim’s entrée into a journalism career in Chicago. Baim called it “a perfect moment.”
Washington said that in journalism, “No should always mean yes.” When she started in the field there were very few Black reporters in mainstream media. Graduating from Northwestern’s Medill School did not help her prospects. After applying to over 100 news organizations, she only heard back from five, all of whom told her no. A journalism professor at Medill told Washington about the small, independent monthly publication Chicago Reporter, which focused on investigative reporting on race and equity. Washington was ultimately hired there.
Segal said he had no idea he would become a journalist. His entrée into the field came a few months after Stonewall, when he tried to get an ad in the “nation’s most liberal newspaper, the Village Voice, saying we’re homosexuals, and we’re organizing.” The Voice refused to run it. That led to a demonstration against the Voice, and after that the ad did indeed run.. Segal recounted the stories of how he ended up disrupting live TV broadcasts to get them to pay attention to the queer community at NBC’s The Today Show (when Barbara Walters was one of the co-hosts) and CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.
Foy asked about how the panelists considered inclusivity in their reporting and singled out different age groups and the trans community as examples.
Baim said the key is to not get jaded, since “young people will change the world.” She added that it isn’t easier for young people today because back when she was young the LGBTQ+ community was ignored. Now, with “kids coming out as kids” young people are more vulnerable, so it’s imperative to include those voices in reporting. Baim also spoke about the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 resulting in increased awareness of intersectionality between the LGBTQ+ community and others.
Washington pointed to the diversity in the platforms where young people access their news, where there is often opportunity to create their own entities that are outside corporate structures that put up barriers to entry. She said the ideas she imparts on young people in the media are maintaining ethical standards, fact checking and reaching out to multiple sources, as well as seeking out older mentors for guidance.
Segal spoke about the origins of Philadelphia Gay News and how he wanted to focus on hard news in the LGBTQ+ community in his city. That included coverage of gay youth. He said he tried to become a member of the Pennsylvania Media Association early on which they refused, and it took an intervention at one of the association board meetings by the Philadelphia Inquirer for them to become a member.
Foy asked how each of them has made the visibility of marginalized communities stick.
Baim said the key is consistently showing up, which she has done by attending hundreds of events a year. She also spoke about the origins of BLACKlines and En La Vida when she was at Outlines, and the importance of hiring people in Black and Latino communities to cover what was happening in thosecommunities.
Washington spoke about the prevalence of dozens of smaller independent news entities in Chicago which helps diverse communities’ stories get told. She said this has also given her a chance to collaborate with them on investigative pieces which combine their audiences in ways that weren’t available before.
Segal said he brought diversity to the Philadelphia Gay News by hiring diverse employees, which both a lesbian editor and a Black editor. He also started Philadelphia Multicultural Newspaper Association, which includes members from diverse populations to help amplify their stories.
As for the risks and rewards of being visible, Baim recalled the physical and verbal threats she has faced as well as finally being seen as a real journalist in the early 2000s. Washington said it has been worse for her in this current digital age where she is confronted with hate in a much closer way especially over the past three years on social media, where she has been addressed with racist and misogynist slurs. Segal spoke about being on a KKK hit list and them sending a death threat to him. That letter was among the papers he recently donated to the Smithsonian.
Foy spoke about when she joined a 175-year-old conservative leaning organization 10 years ago and was outed via email by her accepting boss to the 1,400 other employees and became “the head queer” there. She said they didn’t have employee resource groups at the time and when that happened the Pride one was the first to be created. Foy said speaking out is so important, especially now because companies always seek to reduce engagement with the LGBTQ+ community first.
In terms of their career legacy, Baim said the best choice for her was leaving Windy City Times the first time to create Outlines, then gaining control of it again years later. Washington spoke about leaving journalism for a time to work for then Mayor Harold Washington where she learned there are two sides of the story which made her a better journalist when she returned to that profession. Segal described learning journalism on the job and the time when he produced a July 4 Elton John concert for a live broadcast as his career turning points.
Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center Director of Education Leah Rauch, Windy City Times Publisher Matt Simonette, Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame Co-Founder and Board Member emeritus Gary Chichester also spoke at the June 8 presentation. Other event community partners included Center on Halsted, The Legacy Project, OUTspoken and NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists.