Out of the TV Newsroom Closet : KNBC’s Garrett Glaser Breaks Ground as an Openly Gay On-Air Reporter

The most prominent fixture in Garrett Glaser’s cubicle at KNBC-TV Channel 4 in Burbank is a 3-by-4-foot ACT UP poster proclaiming, “Hollywood, Quit Censoring Our Queer Lives!” Beneath are photos of him with celebrities he has interviewed, intermingled with photos of him with various (non-celebrity) boyfriends.

Glaser, 41, Channel 4’s media/ entertainment reporter, sits on the board of directors of the National Lesbian/Gay Journalists Assn. and, in his free time, hosts gay-themed shows for KCET-TV Channel 28, including its recent commemoration of the gay liberation movement’s birth with the Stonewall riots 25 years ago.

While virtually all Southland TV newsrooms employ gay men and lesbians, Glaser’s openness about his orientation and his willingness to fight for gay causes set him apart among on-air personnel.

In an article for the issue of Out magazine that will be available next week, CNBC medical correspondent Steve Gendel writes that while his co-workers knew he was gay when he worked at KNBC and KCBS-TV Channel 2 a few years ago, he hid it from viewers. Local gay activists say that’s the norm.

Glaser’s presence, by contrast, marks “a dramatic breakthrough,” Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center spokesman Sky Johnson said. “The dam has been broken. This is the beginning of the on-air recognition of the full gay community.”

Lee Werbel, executive director for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said Glaser’s hiring last February was important because “it gives gays a visible role model. It tells gays and lesbians in the audience that what we see on television has something to do with us.”

KNBC news director Mark Hoffman said he hired Glaser “not because of his sexual orientation, but because he is an excellent reporter.”

Nevertheless, Hoffman said, “We understand that total objectivity is impossible, that everybody brings a life experience to every story they report. . . . I would like to think that (Glaser’s) presence gives us more depth on the tube. In the newsroom, it gives us one more voice to sensitize people on gay issues.”

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Since his arrival, Glaser has pressed the station to increase both the quantity and quality of its coverage of gay issues. Recent stories he has initiated include a feature on the high-brow gay magazine, Urban Fitness, and a feature on how mainstream advertisers are increasingly targeting their products to the gay market.

Glaser has also pushed for increased gay visibility in the newsroom and on the air.

“I don’t care if a reporter is covering city politics or sports. He’s a role model. And it’s important that the 10-year-old watching at home knows that some of the reporters he sees are gay. He needs to see the reporter doing his job well, and to know that the stereotype for gays and lesbians is most often false.

“Gays are still an invisible minority. The sooner we stand up and are counted, the faster the fight will go in our favor.”

Glaser “came out” as a junior at New York City’s Dalton School in 1969. “I remember, even in high school, saying that I would not go into the closet. I saw the toll that took on people, the self-torture, the frequent resort to alcohol and drug abuse,” he said.

“I saw gay people get married and have kids because they thought they had to. I saw others who didn’t live up to their potential because they thought they didn’t deserve it. I wanted no part of that; I wanted to be proud of myself.”

As an openly gay man, Glaser worked at WABC-TV in New York and for the syndicated magazine show “Entertainment Tonight.” He has also done stints in Miami; Norfolk, Va.; Detroit and Ft. Wayne, Ind. Throughout the years, he witnessed newsroom homophobia, and had one network correspondent confide to him, “I already lost one job by coming out. I’m not going to lose another.”

Glaser doesn’t buy the argument that “closeted” gays can provide the input to properly cover the gay community.

“The danger of closeted employees is that they are so fearful of disclosing their orientation, they stifle legitimate stories on the community,” he said. “They no longer use their journalistic skills to dig up good stories. Instead, their first priority is to cover up--and so they throw their training out the window. It’s insane.”

Hank Plante, an openly gay reporter and anchor at CBS’ San Francisco affiliate, KPIX-TV, agrees that television news is frequently homophobic.

“TV news is run by straight white males with no direct experience with the gay and lesbian communities,” he said. “. . . If there is a gay pride parade, and out of 100,000 marchers there are three drag queens, I could guarantee what shot they would take. TV goes for the cheap shots.”

Plante insisted that his openness about his orientation has aided him in breaking many stories, including that of the first openly gay Catholic priest with AIDS and the first documented case of AIDS transmission through oral sex. His sources within the gay community trusted him “as a man whose interest in the community is heightened because I’m one of them,” he said.

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Plante attributed the scarcity of openly gay reporters to many television news executives “perceiving more discrimination than actually exists. They think that society thinks a certain way on this, and cover the news accordingly. The lack of coverage, in turn, helps reinforce their perceptions, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Even at KNBC, Glaser has only been allowed to hint at his orientation on air by using the word us instead of them when covering the gay community. Nevertheless, news director Hoffman said that he has green-lighted Glaser’s on-air coming out as part of a “relevant report on the gay community,” which he and Glaser are discussing for the November ratings sweeps.

“I’ve seen many surveys showing that the gay community is very loyal to brands that reach out to the gay media. They remember who was there first,” Glaser said. “Similarly, they’ll remember us. . . .

“If we succeed, a lot of people will know that, to get the insider story on the gay community, tune in to Channel 4. I’m just amazed that the other stations are still waiting on the sidelines on this. It makes our beating them to the punch almost too easy.”