Don’t work hard–work smart

By Michael Tune (NLGJA executive director)

I met with one of my mentors recently. She asked how I was, and inquired if I had been working hard. (For the record, I have three mentors, and I don’t think any of them realize who they are.) For her, your work is the most important thing. It serves as exhibits A through Z of your life to prove that you were productive, that you contributed to humanity in a meaningful way. For her, work comes before most anything else.

I paused, and risked displeasing her when I finally responded with the simple statement, “I’ve been working smart.”

Whenever I have a meeting with someone who is late, they always respond with, “Sorry, I am just so busy,” as though they are the only one in this restaurant/coffee shop/phone call who is actually busy.

The truth is, everyone is busy: That’s what Americans do. They work … busily.

To say that you’re busy is akin to saying, “Sorry, I’m late. I was brushing my teeth.”  Who doesn’t brush their teeth? What you’re really saying is that you can’t seem to organize your life well enough to arrive on time, or that you’ve over-committed yourself.

If you find yourself in that situation, might I suggest you need to learn how to work smart. To start, prioritize, and learn to say “no” so you’re not biting off more than you can chew.

I’m the “no” guy. I say the word “no” a lot in my work. It drives people crazy, but it drives me calmly. I know my limits; know yours. The truth is, if I were to say “yes” to every request, proposal and project, I’d just be lying to the requester, proposer and project creator. And as we all know, lying never leads to anything good for anyone.

Spend the time you need to prioritize your overall work, your day and your life. Be realistic. For example, I haven’t worked at a job that required a timecard in years, but I still often find myself keeping strict written records of how long it takes me to do Project X. It not only helps me remember how long Project X actually took to do, it helps me better understand how much free time I will actually have next Thursday when I’m working on Project X again.

Working smart doesn’t mean you won’t work hard. It means you’re focused on your priorities, and more likely to be happy with the finished result. And as an added bonus, you’ll probably be on time to a lot more meetings.

What are your tricks to working smart?

ESPN host, reporter OK to question Collins’ Christianity?

By Sharif Durhams (NGLJA board member and Reporter/Social Media Editor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Washington Wizards free agent Jason Collins wrote this week that he wanted to start a conversation when he became the first male athlete on a professional team sport to declare he’s gay.

The subsequent “conversation” on ESPN almost overshadowed the announcement when an ESPN reporter said Collins’ declaration was “in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ.”
During a discussion Monday on interview program “Outside the Lines,” ESPN NBA analyst Chris Broussard told the show’s host about the varied reactions from players, team general managers and NBA leadership to Collins’ announcement.

The host then asked Broussard about a section in Collins’ piece in which he describes his Christian upbringing.

Broussard spent the next minute sharing his view:

Personally, I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly premarital sex [sic] between heterosexuals. If you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, then the Bible says “You know them by their fruits.” It says that’s a sin. If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, adultery, fornication, premarital sex between heterosexuals, whatever it may be, I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I do not think the Bible would characterize them as a Christian.

The host elicited this response from ESPN opinion writer LZ Granderson, NLGJA’s 2011 Journalist of the Year:

My response is that faith–just like love, just like marriage–is personal. If you try to use a broad brush to paint everyone’s faith, what you really are painting is a world in which it’s comfortable for you … in this country, we’re allowed various forms of religion. Just because someone doesn’t agree with one person’s interpretation of the Bible versus another, doesn’t mean that they have the exclusive rights to dictate how that person should live.

ESPN later released a statement saying the network regrets “ that a respectful discussion of personal viewpoints became a distraction from today’s news.” Broussard released a statement reiterating his beliefs, but said his personal views won’t change his ability to report on the NBA and described Collins as brave for publicly coming out.

Broussard is receiving the expected support and criticism. As a journalist, I’m more intrigued by the question that triggered Broussard’s hotly debated statement. “He mentioned in his article, Jason, that he is a Christian as well, so what’s your take on that?”

Broussard is free to have whatever religious beliefs he wants. But having the host even raise the question of whether an athlete’s faith is genuine seems to be a place reporters would rarely go.

We could, for instance, ask Broussard’s take on players who have children out of wedlock while saying they’re Christian, but I can’t imagine an ESPN host raising that question. Former New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow is probably the most visibly vocal Christian athlete in American sports, but I can’t imagine an ESPN host asking whether his particular evangelism is Christ-like.

The website Business Insider went as far as to see an ESPN conspiracy in the decision to raise the question. “[W]hen you consider both Broussard’s history and the entire context of the conversation, it’s clear that the producers at ESPN knew exactly what they were getting themselves into, and it’s their fault more than Broussard’s for creating a situation that they’ve now apologized for.”

Broussard’s views are known. In 2007, already-retired NBA veteran John Amaechi announced publicly that he was gay. Two years later in an interview, Broussard said many sportswriters wrote about Amaechi’s announcement from a “pro-homosexual” standpoint.

I don’t know that I’d take it that far. But the ESPN host opened the network to such accusations.

There are a number of ways the host could have gotten to the issue of religion without asking Broussard his personal opinion. And there are ways Broussard could have reminded the audience that some athletes would have a religious objection to Collins’ sexual identity without sharing his personal objections.

The Wait for an Active Gay NFL Player

Former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo has backtracked from his claim that up to four gay NFL players were considering coming out on the same day.

That has allowed for some interesting Monday morning quarterbacking (sorry, had to say it!). Yahoo! sports writer Jason Cole has written an excellent article on this topic.

“Media must be delicate in handling of active NFL gay player coming out publicly” is the title of his article:

Former Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita, who along with Ayanbadejo supports marriage equality and gay causes, got a phone call from one news outlet. The reporter wanted to know Fujita’s opinion about what Ayanbadejo was saying. The conversation quickly turned to the reporter’s real objective.

Do you know who those four players could be?

“I figured out what they were really wanting pretty quickly,” Fujita said with equal amounts of sarcasm and disappointment.

This is where the chase gets dangerous. Even though Ayanbadejo later backed off his claim, it was only after reporters who work with Bob Costas, CNN, ESPN and numerous other outlets had chased the tidbit. [Cyd] Zeigler [of Outsports.com] eventually weighed in on the subject, casting doubt that there were ever four NFL players planning to come out and throwing a wet blanket on CBSSports.com writer Mike Freeman’s assertion that an NFL player is “close” to coming out.

“Just wait for the headline that someone has come out; anything else is just a guess,” said Zeigler, who admitted Friday that he’s only reasonably sure of two gay NFL players.

Worse, Zeigler said, there is almost a witch-hunt element to what is going on. It’s not necessarily intentional, but it’s there nonetheless.

“I just hope that it doesn’t get to the point that somebody feels pressured to come out because they feel that this news organization is about to out them,” said Zeigler, who is 39 and came out when he was 23. “You don’t want people to feel pressured into this.”

It’s anyone’s guess when the media will finally have to deal with this for real, but I do wonder what role, if any, LGBT journalists and LGBT media will play.

Winning on same-sex marriage coverage

This week’s news really was all about same-sex marriage, particularly here in Washington, D.C. Perhaps my news feeds are biased, but it looks like the coverage was balanced — supportive even. There was plenty of positive coverage of the Supreme Court hearings and, even when news outlets felt compelled to “balance” the story with the views of those who oppose same-sex marriage, hosts felt compelled to disagree with them on air. Here were some of the highlights:

The Washington Post ran an editorial calling for the overturn of California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act.

Bill O’Reilly said that same-sex marriage advocates have a “compelling argument.”

Rush Limbaugh said the conservatives have lost on the same-sex marriage issue.

Earlier this week, Fox News host Megyn Kelly gave National Organization for Marriage founder Maggie Gallagher a what for, comparing same-sex marriage to interracial marriage, and noting how the Supreme Court intervened in the latter.

And perhaps most compelling this week are the split Time covers: “Gay Marriage Already Won.” The black-and-white photos are an interesting, provocative selection. The magazine didn’t opt for family photos of smiling, nonthreatening gay and lesbian families and their kids: It went for the part of same-sex marriage that may be most off-putting to mainstream cultures. The kissing, the sexuality. It’s a bold choice for a mainstream publication to make. Certainly, there will be backlash and outrage and “moral disapproval” that the magazine featured same-sex couples kissing. (On the cover! Close up! No color!) But it was likely a good business decision. And the accompanying article was largely positive, save for a colorful sentence about AIDS and bathhouses.

So what was your take on the media’s coverage of this week’s Supreme Court hearings? Did you see anything good, bad, ugly?

Jenna Wolfe’s big news: She’s pregnant (and gay)

By Matthew E. Berger (NLGJA board member and vice president of Dezenhall Resources, a crisis communications firm in Washington, D.C.)

It’s been a pretty big week so far for LGBT news, with the much anticipated two days of hearings before the U.S. Supreme Court on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. But I was also struck by the other LGBT media news of the week, how it was handled and what the headline was not.

Jenna Wolfe, the weekend anchor of NBC’s “Today,” announced on air Wednesday that she was pregnant and having a baby with fellow NBC News correspondent Stephanie Gosk. In the segment, Wolfe bantered with Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie about buying strollers and breast pumps, and said she’d be blogging about her pregnancy adventures. Then they went to commercial.

It was typical for a morning program, and not unlike what had happened several months previously when Jenna Bush Hager announced her pregnancy on air (although George W. and Laura Bush didn’t call in this time).

Here’s what wasn’t said: Wolfe and Gosk, who was not in the segment, never mentioned the previously undisclosed news that they were both gay.

While not a household name like Anderson Cooper or Sam Champion, Wolfe is seen regularly on television, yet hadn’t been the subject of rampant rumors. She was choosing to make an announcement of her pregnancy, not of her sexual orientation, and she did it not because of outside pressure or as an act of advocacy, but because she had something exciting to share, and presumably because her audience was going to notice.

Wolfe, Gosk and NBC News didn’t shy away from the fact that the two women are lesbians. But it was never said, not because of shame or embarrassment, but because it wasn’t a big deal. By focusing on the pregnancy and the impending birth of their daughter, they skipped the “coming out” step, as if they’d been out all along.

(Disclosure: I worked for NBC News in 2007 and 2008 as a campaign reporter, but do not know Wolfe or Gosk).

I have always been very conflicted about the public coming out of any celebrity, but particularly of journalists. On the one hand, I am a big believer that having out LGBT people in the public eye is essential for raising a bright light to the civil-rights issues we face and providing role models for the next generation. That’s why I am part of NLGJA.

But at the same time, there has to be a middle ground between being in the closet and announcing you’re gay on the front page of a magazine. Many people live openly gay lives without making headlines. They are out to their family, friends and colleagues, but either do not warrant a public announcement of their sexual orientation or leave that type of advocacy to others. That’s certainly true for some LGBT journalists, who take their role as an objective arbiter of facts seriously and shy away from disclosing personal views and details of their private lives.

We should not assume that the only options are “closeted” and “gay icon.” Many actors, politicians and journalists are out, but just haven’t told you. It was as if Wolfe and Gosk were saying, “I never told you I am straight, so why should I tell you I am gay?”

Wolfe, Gosk and NBC are perhaps making a bigger statement in their handling of this news than if they had the two women on the couch announcing that they are lesbians. What they are saying is that having two gay correspondents shouldn’t make headlines. But that doesn’t mean anyone is ashamed of who they are.