Wonder what we're up to at GLAAD? Be sure to check out GLAAD's Newsroom each week for updates about our latest work to build support for LGBT equality through news, entertainment and online media.
GLAAD releases annual TV reports on quality and quantity of media portrayals
GLAAD released its two annual television reports – the Network Responsibility Index (NRI) and the Where We Are on TV report. These reports map the quantity, quality, and diversity of images of LGBT people on television. While the NRI reviews the previous season and rates networks on LGBT-inclusive content between June 2013 and May 2014, the Where We Are on TV report is a character count and analysis of scripted characters in the upcoming 2014-2015 season. For the first time in the Network Responsibility Index, three different networks earned "Excellent" grades in the same year: ABC Family, HBO, and MTV. In the Where We Are on TV report, which counts the number of LGBT characters in the 2014-2015 television season which just began, GLAAD found that 3.9% of primetime broadcast scripted series regulars will be LGBT characters. Read more here.
Bringing faith into focus
GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation released "In Focus: Faith, LGBT People, & the Midterm Elections,” a groundbreaking resource guide that empowers journalists to challenge anti-LGBT talking heads who mask bias as a "tenet of faith." The guide is designed to help the media provide accurate information about LGBT people and faith in the lead up to the 2014 midterm elections. For more information on the campaign, go to http://www.glaad.org/vote. Read more here.
Meeting with Facebook
A coalition of LGBT advocates and organizations, including GLAAD, met with Facebook to discuss a policy that requires some flagged Facebook users to present identification that matches the name on their profile. After the meeting, Chris Cox, Chief Product Officer at Facebook released a statement apologizing for the policy and committed to making changes moving forward. The meeting came after several drag performers reported that their Facebook profiles were suspended. Read more here.
Spanish-Language Media team on CNNen Español
Spanish-Language Media Strategist Janet Arelis Quezada appeared on CNN en Español's Realidades en Contexto hosted by Mercedes Soler to discuss a Montana Catholic Church's expulsion of two congregants for being a gay couple that married outside of the state. GLAAD received a note from advocates in the Dominican Republic who saw the segment live there. Watch the clip here and read more here.
GLAAD's Director of Spanish-Language Media Monica Trasandes was a guest on Realidades en Contexto on CNN en Español to discuss a new homecoming policy adopted in Ashland, OR, to ensure better inclusion of transgender and non-gender conforming students. The show airs in the U.S. and throughout the Caribbean, South and Central America. "Realidades en Contexto" reaches an estimated 34 million people in Central and Latin America and 4 million in the United States.
Panel with Union Theological Seminary
GLAAD and Union Theological Seminary hosted a screening of Queers in the Kingdom: Let Your Light Shine. Markie Hancock's film follows LGBT students and alumni at Wheaton College, one of the most established evangelical Christian schools in the country. There, GLAAD's Ross Murray moderated a panel discussing the relationship between personal faith and public LGBT life.
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