The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) began its spring season of announcing its annual GLAAD Media Awards for pro-gay journalism last week at the Marriott Marquis in New York (thanks in part to 100 donors, including "Platinum Underwriter" Time Warner). Other ceremonies will follow in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami, but the bulk of their awards were celebrated in New York. Among the big winners: Rosie O'Donnell for her "All Aboard!" HBO documentary touting her gay and lesbian family cruise. She was there to accept the award with filmmaker Shari Cookson, and gave a nod to tennis legend Billie Jean King, subject of another nominated documentary, saying "if it hadn't been for Billie Jean King, there wouldn't have been a gay movement."
Also honored in the awards, offered to journalists and entertainers GLAAD thought were "fair, accurate, inclusive, and impossibly glam," were the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, ABC's "Nightline," and especially The New York Times, which won three.
Fittingly, Frank Rich won in the Outstanding Columnist category. The Outstanding Newspaper Article award was given to Patricia Leigh Brown for "Supporting Boys or Girls When The Line Isn't Clear." The Outstanding Magazine Article award went to Kenjo Yoshino for an article in the Sunday paper's New York Times Magazine titled "The Pressure to Cover."
The Los Angeles Times won for Outstanding Newspaper Overall Coverage. ABC's "Nightline" segment "Forbidden Love" won for Outstanding TV Journalism. The Washington Post won (or they would say the somewhat separate Web team at washingtonpost.com was the winner) for Outstanding Digital Journalism - Multimedia for a Web video titled "Being A Gay Black Man" by Ben de la Cruz, Pierre Kattar, and Sholnn Z. Friedman.
In other awards of note, Details magazine edged out People in the Outstanding Magazine Overall Coverage award. Oprah Winfrey's show won Outstanding Talk Show Episode for "Wives Confess They Are Gay." The Scissor Sisters won Outstanding Music Artist for their CD "Ta-Dah" even if the more interesting nominee title was "Impeach My Bush" by Peaches (a drag queen, not the '80s soul singer who sang "Mercedes Boy.")
The GLAAD ceremonies will air on Viacom's gay and lesbian Logo cable channel on April 21.
Perhaps the weirdest presenter of the night was actress and singer Hilary Duff popping out of her dress, no doubt trying to graduate beyond her days as an idol to grade-school girls for Disney's "Lizzie McGuire" TV shows and movies. She presented the Outstanding Reality Program award to Bravo's fashion-designer reality show "Project Runway."
For a look at the pro-gay journalism honorees, including the other nominees, awards are listed below:
OUTSTANDING TV JOURNALISM – NEWSMAGAZINE
Winner: "Forbidden Love" Nightline (ABC)"Lesbians in the Ministry" To the Contrary (PBS)
"Transgender People" The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch (CNBC)
"Under the Rainbow" NOW (PBS)
"Will Gay Debate Tear Church Apart?" Larry King Live (CNN)OUTSTANDING NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST
Winner: Frank Rich (The New York Times)
Alfred Doblin (Herald News [Bergen, NJ])
Dana Milbank (The Washington Post)
Deb Price (The Detroit News)
Dan Savage (The New York Times)OUTSTANDING NEWSPAPER OVERALL COVERAGE
Winner: Los Angeles TimesThe Boston Globe
The Daily Press [Newport News, VA]
The Honolulu Advertiser
USA TodayOUTSTANDING DIGITAL JOURNALISM – MULTIMEDIA
Winner: "Being a Gay Black Man" by Ben de la Cruz, Pierre Kattar, and Sholnn Z. Freeman (WashingtonPost.com)"AIDS at 25: A Multimedia Perspective" (Newsweek.com)
"Mookey's Story" by Carolyn Goossen, Daffodil Altan, and Min Lee (NewAmericaMedia.org)OUTSTANDING MAGAZINE ARTICLE
Winner: "The Pressure to Cover" (PDF) by Kenji Yoshino (The New York Times Magazine)
"I am Woman" by D. Cookie Fields as told to Michelle Burford (Essence)
"The Out Crowd" by Jason Newman (Urb)
"Queer Inc." by Marc Gunther (Fortune)
"What if It's (Sort of) a Boy and (Sort of) a Girl?" by Elizabeth Weil (The New York Times Magazine)
