Journalist

CNN Executive Producer

b. November 11, 1977

“As Americans we should all share one dream … that we should all enjoy the same rights as everybody else.”

Javier Morgado is a journalist and a four-time Emmy Award-winning executive producer at CNN. He received his latest award as part of the CNN team whose breaking coverage of George Floyd’s murder won a News Emmy on September 28, 2021. Morgado earned an Edward R. Murrow Award in 2018 for CNN’s coverage of the devastation in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria.

Morgado was born to Cuban parents in Miami, Florida. Cable news captivated him early on. Eventually, he grew “completely obsessed” with the format and writing of news programs. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami and holds two master’s degrees: one from Fordham University and one from New York University. He completed executive education programs at Harvard Business School and Northwestern University and began his journalism career in 1995 at WPLG, Miami’s ABC affiliate.

In 1999 Morgado joined NBC’s WTVJ as an assignment editor. In 2001 his work with NBC News hunting down leads on the September 11 terrorist attacks captured the network’s attention. He soon was promoted to the NBC News assignment desk in New York.

During his 11 years there, Morgado held several leadership positions. He played a pivotal role in the network’s coverage of breaking stories, including the Space Shuttle Columbia explosion, and served on the team that led the network’s award-winning coverage of the Iraq war in 2003. Mogado worked as senior political editor during the 2004 presidential election and the 2006 midterms. He became the supervising producer of “TODAY” from 2006 to 2010, during which time, the show won two Daytime Emmys.

In December 2011, Morgado joined CNN as senior broadcast producer of “Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien.” He became the executive producer of “New Day,” a position he held for seven years, before moving on to produce “At This Hour With Kate Bolduan.”

Morgado is a lifetime member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA). He is vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Martha Graham Dance Company and sits on the boards of the Stonewall Community Foundation and the Provincetown Film Festival. He is a member of the Dean’s Committee at the University of Miami School of Communication and teaches as an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

For Morgado, being openly gay in the workplace is an incredible asset. He insists, “Being true to who I am allows me to focus on the stories we tell, on reporting the truth and on showcasing diverse perspectives in our coverage.”

Journalist & Commentator

b. March 11, 1972

“This is the gay agenda: equality. Not special rights, but the rights that are already written by [our Founding Fathers].”

Elzie Lee “LZ” Granderson is a groundbreaking, openly gay American sportswriter and commentator. His work for major news outlets such as CNN, ESPN and ABC News has increased the visibility of racial justice and LGBTQ equality in athletics.

Granderson’s passion for sports began early. Born in Detroit to a poor family, he suffered abuse from his stepfather and turned to drugs and gangs as an adolescent. Sports helped save him. “I’d be bleeding from being whipped and go to sleep reading the NBA Almanac,” he said in a 2012 interview. “It was my blanket that helped me heal. I read every line about every player.”

Granderson began his career as an actor. He attended Western Michigan University on a theater scholarship and landed his first film role in “Zebrahead” at the age of 20. A few years later, he appeared in “To Sir, With Love II” (1996), with Sidney Poitier reprising his original role.

Granderson got his start in journalism at the The Grand Rapids Press. During the 1990s, when he was trying to break into sportswriting, the industry was deeply homophobic.

Granderson, who was open about his sexuality, recalls one interviewer asking him, “What does a gay guy know about the NBA?” Undeterred, Granderson broke into sportswriting at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, after a stint as a home-design writer. He went on to serve as a writer and columnist for ESPN Page 2, co-host of ESPN’s “SportsNation” and afternoon co-host on ESPN LA710. He quickly developed a reputation for incisive columns that combined sports with social commentary on race, gender and sexual orientation.

Granderson has taken his unique perspective to numerous media outlets. He served as a CNN columnist and a contributor to “Erin Burnett OutFront,” “Newsroom with Don Lemon” and “Anderson Cooper 360.” He regularly contributed to ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “This Week” and “Nightline,” in addition to co-anchoring ABC’s coverage of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. He joined the LA Times in 2019 as the sports and culture columnist and an op-ed writer.

In 2009 Granderson won the GLAAD Media Award for digital journalism for his ESPN article, “Gay Athletes Are Making Their Mark.” The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association honored him in 2008 and 2010. Granderson’s Ted Talk on LGBTQ equality, “The Myth of the Gay Agenda,” has received more than 1.6 million views.

Granderson lives with his partner, Steve Huesing. He has one child from a previous marriage.

New York Times Columnist

b. October 31, 1964

“It’s a hell of a thing to have your identity, your dignity — your very hold on happiness — pressed into partisan battle and fashioned into a political weapon.”

Frank Bruni is a longtime writer for The New York Times and the newspaper’s first gay columnist. He is the best-selling author of three books. Frank Bruni and Andrew Sullivan are the two most impactful commentators on gay equality.

The middle child of three, Bruni was born and raised in White Plains, New York. His parents dubbed him the “big klutz,” and labeled his brothers respectively as “charismatic and confident” and “crafty and focused.”

In Bruni’s humorous and poignant memoir, “Born Round: A Story of Family, Food and a Ferocious Appetite” (2009), he recounts his life through the lens of disordered eating. His parents teased him about his weight, joking that his initials (F.B.) stood for “fat boy.” He eventually joined his mother on a series of fad diets.

The incessant focus on food led Bruni to develop multiple eating disorders. Through prep school, he jumped from one weight-loss scheme to another, including extensive fasting, amphetamine abuse and excessive exercise. Realizing he was gay was not terribly unsettling for Bruni, but his struggle with anorexia and bulimia filled him with such shame, he abstained from sexual contact.

In 1986 Bruni graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He earned an M.S. in journalism with highest honors in 1988 from Columbia University.

Bruni started his career at the New York Post. He moved to the Detroit Free Press in 1990 where, in 1992, he became a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his profile of a child molester.

In 1995 Bruni joined The New York Times. As a White House correspondent, he reported on George W. Bush. His book “Ambling into History” (2002) chronicles Bush’s presidential campaign. Bruni went on to become a restaurant critic for The Times and was named an op-ed writer in 2011.

Bruni has been a career-long LGBT and AIDS activist and has often opined about marriage equality. In 2016 he wrote extensively about Pete Buttigieg, then the openly gay Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, positioning him as a talented and serious potential presidential candidate.

In 2018 Bruni wrote about a rare condition that led to significant vision loss in his right eye. He left his official post at The Times in 2021 to accept an endowed chair in journalism at Duke University.

Bruni received the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Newspaper Columnist in 2012 and 2013. In 2016 the Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association presented him with the Randy Shilts Award for his dedication to LGBT Americans.

Bruni lives in Durham, North Carolina. He contributes to The New York Times and CNN.

Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia

b. March 9, 1970

“Today was the day of the woman.” 

Claudia López is the first woman and the first openly gay person to be elected mayor of Bogotá, Colombia. She holds the second most important political office in the country.

López was raised with her five younger siblings in the working-class neighborhoods of Bogotá. She discovered her passion for politics in college as part of the mass student movement La Séptima Papeleta (The Seventh Ballot). The movement came about following the assassination of Colombia’s president. It demanded the formation of a National Constituent Assembly to modify the Colombian Constitution.

López landed her first political position as an assistant to Enrique Peñalosa’s 1995 campaign for mayor of Bogotá. After Peñalosa was elected, López directed his Community Action Administrative Department and launched a career as a newspaper columnist, becoming one of Colombia’s most respected political analysts.

In 2005 López began exposing the infiltration of paramilitary groups in some of the highest levels of government. Her research and reporting on the parapolítica network triggered a national scandal that led to the prosecution of more than 60 congressman—greater than one third of the Congress.

In 2008 López joined a think tank, New Rainbow Corporation, as coordinator of armed conflict research. Her work led to a 2013 publication that established ties between Francisco Gomez, the former governor of La Guajira province, and a major drug trafficker. Gomez was investigated and sentenced to 55 years in prison. López received death threats and was forced to flee the country. Despite this, she returned to Colombia the following year to run for the Senate.

As a senator, she co-led a ballot referendum to reduce corruption. She resigned from the Senate to run as vice president to Sergio Fajardo in Colombia’s 2018 presidential election, but Fajardo was defeated.

Thereafter, López began her mayoral campaign, running on a platform of improving public education, supporting infrastructure and fighting corruption. She won the election in October 2019 by a narrow margin. Her win as a woman and a lesbian made history in the conservative country. In her victory speech, López declared it “the day of the woman,” crediting the unity of her diverse constituency for her success.

In December 2019, López married Representative Angélica Lozano Correa. López took office on January 1, 2020.

Pulitzer-Winning Journalist

b. December 19, 1987

“We are grappling, as a culture, with our collective failure to … treat men and women equally …”

Ronan Farrow is an American investigative journalist. In 2017 the 7,000-word story he broke in The New Yorker was the first to expose rape and sexual assault allegations against media titan Harvey Weinstein. The revelations ignited the #MeToo movement, a global reckoning on sexual predation and abuse of power.

Farrow was born in New York City, the son of the actress Mia Farrow and the filmmaker Woody Allen. He entered Bard College at age 11 and graduated at 15—the youngest student ever to do so. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2009. The same year, he joined the Obama Administration as special adviser for humanitarian and NGO affairs in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In 2011 Farrow founded the State Department’s Office of Global Youth Issues, serving under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He left government to pursue his doctorate at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.

Farrow left Oxford to pursue journalism full-time. He had been writing for major publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The LA Times and The Atlantic. For The Wall Street Journal in 2006, he was among the first to report on the role of Chinese investments in fueling the Darfur conflict. His piece helped spark a major international divestment campaign.

Farrow has since worked as an investigative reporter and television commentator and has served as an anchor for MSNBC and NBC. His stories for The New Yorker were the first to expose sexual abuse allegations against movie producer Harvey Weinstein, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves and other powerful men. Farrow also wrote the first detailed accounts of payments made to suppress sexual misconduct stories about Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Farrow faced institutional push-back and physical threats during his research and reporting on Weinstein. His exposure of the mogul marked a watershed for women’s rights, catalyzing long-suppressed sexual assault and harassment allegations against a multitude of prominent men, many of whom have been ousted from their positions. His reporting on Weinstein for The New Yorker earned the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for public service, along with other prestigious awards.

In 2018 Farrow was honored by the Point Foundation for his #MeToo investigations and his NBC News reporting on transgender issues. He came out during the awards ceremony and thanked the LGBTQ community for being an “incredible source of strength” throughout his work.

Farrow lives in New York with his partner, Jon Lovett, a fellow writer.

Journalist

b. September 3, 1949

“You do it story by story … and try to get to the bottom of what’s really happening.”

Lou Chibbaro Jr. is an award-winning senior news writer for the Washington Blade, the oldest LGBT newspaper in the United States. He has been reporting on issues affecting the LGBT community for more than 40 years and is the first openly gay journalist to be inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists Washington Hall of Fame.

Chibbaro grew up in Long Island, New York. He studied political science and biology at the State University of New York and earned his graduate degree in journalism from American University. He came out to his parents in 1975. Though they were initially alarmed, they gradually accepted  his sexual orientation. A year later, he wrote his first article as a volunteer for the Washington Blade (then the Gay Blade).

Due to widespread homophobia, Chibbaro wrote for his first two years under a pseudonym. During that period, he worked at a publishing company and then for the electric utility trade group, the American Public Power Association.

In 1978 Chibbaro took a position as the publisher of a public utility newsletter. He continued his volunteer reporting for the Washington Blade until 1984, when he became a paid staff writer. He supplemented his small journalist’s salary by driving a taxi.

In his more than four decades at the publication, Chibbaro has chronicled the spectrum of LGBT civil rights issues and angles—from politics and major protests to the AIDS epidemic and hate crimes. He has reported on federal efforts to fire gay people from their government jobs and uncovered scandals involving politicians and male prostitutes. He has reported on issues like “change therapy,” favored a decade ago by some psychiatrists for transgender teens.
 
Between 1975 and 1991, Chibbaro corresponded with Frank Kameny, the father of the LGBT civil rights movement. The Frank Kameny Papers, housed at the U.S. Library of Congress, include the pair’s historically significant communications. When Kameny died in 2011, Chibbaro penned the Washington Blade’s article memorializing him.

Chibbaro has received numerous honors, including the Rainbow History Project’s Community Pioneers Award, the Gay and Lesbian Activist’s Alliance’s Distinguished Service Award and, for his coverage of gay bashings in D.C., the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Victims of Crime Award.

In 2011 Chibbaro made history as the first openly gay journalist inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists Washington Pro Chapter Hall of Fame. His extensive reporter’s notes from 1980 to 2001, detailing LGBT life, are stored in the Special Collections Research Center at George Washington University.

Journalist & Radio Host

b. December 19, 1960

“When it comes to LGBT civil rights, as with other marginalized groups, our fundamental personhood is not an issue that has two sides.”

Michelangelo Signorile is an outspoken American journalist, author and radio personality. He gained notoriety in the 1990s for using his media platform to “out” well-known public figures and closeted anti-gay public officials.

Signorile was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in journalism. After college he moved to Manhattan and gradually came out to his friends and family. 

In the early 1980s, Signorile worked for an entertainment public relations firm where he witnessed the carefully orchestrated closeting of gay celebrities. In the late ’80s, he became an HIV/AIDS activist and joined the media committee of ACT UP to highlight the epidemic. By this time, he had concluded that public figures who kept their homosexuality hidden were hurting the gay rights movement and the fight against HIV/AIDS. 

Signorile cofounded a New York LGBT weekly and first ignited controversy in 1990 with a cover story “outing” the late publishing magnate Malcolm Forbes. He subsequently outed Defense Department official Pete Williams, at a time when gays were banned from the military, and the actress Jodie Foster, among others. Though Signorile’s views on the subject were contentious, he made a strong case for outing powerful public personalities and sparked debate about the line between the right to privacy and the exposure of hypocrisy. 

Throughout his career, Signorile has covered gay issues, culture and politics for media outlets such as the The New York Times, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times. He has served as editor at large for The Advocate and Out Magazine and has provided commentary on “Larry King Live,” “The Today Show,” “Good Morning America” and other television programs. He currently hosts his own three-hour weekday radio program, “The Michelangelo Signorile Show,” on Sirius XM and serves as editor at large for the HuffPost.

Signorile has authored several highly acclaimed, best-selling books including the groundbreaking “Queer in America: Sex, the Media and Closets of Power” (1993), which exposes the double standard for heterosexuals and homosexuals; “Outing Yourself” (1995), a step-by-step guide on the subject; and “Life Outside” (1997), which explores the history of gay culture from the ’50s through the ’80s. 

Signorile was featured in the book “The Gay 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Gay Men and Lesbians, Past and Present,” published in 2002. In 2011 The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association inducted him into the LGBT Journalists Hall of Fame. In 2012 Out Magazine honored him on its annual Out100 list.

In 2013 Signorile married David Gerstner, a film historian. 

Transgender State Legislator

b. September 30, 1984

“What I hope people across the country are able to see in [our victories] is that transgender people can be really good at doing their jobs in elected office; we can make really good legislators.”

Danica Roem is a journalist and the first openly transgender person in the United States to win a seat in a state legislature. On November 7, 2017, she was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. 

Roem was born male and raised in Manassas, Virginia. Her father committed suicide when she was 3, and her maternal grandfather, Anthony Oliveto, helped raise her. Oliveto instilled in Roem a passion for reading newspapers, which influenced her interest in journalism. 

In 2006 Roem graduated with a degree in journalism from St. Bonaventure University in New York. Her college professors described her as a student who worked for those whose voices were ignored. Her interest in politics was sparked initially in 2004 when President George W. Bush proposed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. 

Roem secured her first job after college at the Gainesville Times in Virginia. She worked for the paper for nine years as a lead reporter and also wrote for the Prince William Times in Manassas, Virginia. The Virginia Press Association honored her with seven awards. 

In 2012, 28-year-old Roem began the transition to female—from Dan to Danica. Three years later, she became a news editor at the Montgomery County Sentinel in Rockville, Maryland. She left the paper in 2016 to pursue a career in politics.

Rip Sullivan, state delegate and recruiting chair of the Virginia House Democratic Caucus, reached out to Roem to run for state delegate. She accepted the challenge and successfully defeated Republican incumbent Bob Marshall, who had represented the district for 13 years. As the state’s self-described “chief homophobe,” Marshall sponsored Virginia's “bathroom bill,” designed to restrict the use of public restrooms by transgender people, along with a bill to end same-sex marriage. 

Progressives endorsed Roem, including former Vice President Joe Biden and groups such as the Victory Fund, EMILY’s List, the Human Rights Campaign and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Roem’s campaign raised over $500,000—three times more than her opponent. She received more than a thousand donations under $100, the second highest number of any Virginia delegate candidate. 

Roem defeated Marshall by approximately eight percentage points. Her victory was hailed nationally as a milestone for transgender rights. In January 2018 she and other newly elected female politicians appeared on the cover of TIME magazine.

Pioneering AIDS Activist & Journalist

b. April 29, 1948

“As a teenager I didn't see any positive gay images. … And they certainly weren't in my high school curriculum. But I remember getting excited by characters in books who were marginally alluded to as gay.”

Ann Northrop is a pioneering journalist and news producer who spearheaded media strategy for ACT UP and AIDS awareness during the height of the epidemic. She has been arrested roughly two dozen times for her activism. 

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Northrop was raised with conservative Republican values. She 
entered Vassar College in 1966, where she embraced politically progressive views. 

Northrop began her journalism career immediately after graduation, reporting for a year and a half on the federal government at The National Journal in Washington, D.C. She moved to New York City to work for “Woman,” a morning talk show on the WCBS-TV network. During that time, she became a feminist activist and Vietnam War protester.

Over the next several years, Northrop held a variety of jobs in television and wrote for publications such as Ms. magazine and Ladies’ Home Journal. While writing for Ms., she fell in love with a woman and came out as a lesbian. The two remained a couple for 17 years. 

In the early ’80s, Northrop worked as a writer and producer for ABC’s “Good Morning America,” a talk show covering topics from politics to entertainment. For five years thereafter, she produced the “CBS Morning News.” 

In 1987, during the early part of the AIDS crisis, Northrop placed her media career on hold to teach students about HIV/AIDS and LGBT issues at the Hetrick-Martin Institute for lesbian and gay youth in New York. The following year she joined the AIDS advocacy organization ACT UP. In 1989 she helped ACT UP organize a national media event, “Stop the Church,” in which 4,500 activists protested at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. The protest challenged the Catholic Church's opposition to condom use and sex education. The story captured major news coverage.

Northrop served as the only LGBT delegate from New York at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. She was an active board member of the 1994 Gay Games in New York City.

In 1996 Northrop returned to television to co-host and co-executive produce “Gay USA.” The one-hour weekly news show airs on national cable channels and covers national and international LGBT topics. 

Northrop was a founding member of the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, a think tank now known as the Williams Institute, and she helped found the Lesbian and Gay Alumnae Association of Vassar College. She has trained countless activists in dealing with the media and has spoken at many high-profile LGBT events. Northrop has appeared in several documentaries, including two in 2012: “How to Survive a Plague” and “United in Anger: A History of ACT UP.”

Pulitzer-Winning Journalist

b. July 2, 1967

“One of the burdens of being a black male is carrying the heavy weight of other people's suspicions.” 

Jonathan T. Capehart is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a member of The Washington Post editorial board. 

Capehart was born in Newark, New Jersey. He attended Saint Benedict's Preparatory School and graduated with a degree in political science from Carleton College in 1989. 

Before joining The Washington Post, Capehart was a researcher for NBC’s “The Today Show.” He went on to the New York Daily News (NYDN), where he served on the editorial board from 1993 until 2000. There, Capehart was a key contributor to a 16-month series that helped save the Apollo Theater in Harlem. The project earned the NYDN editorial board the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Best Editorial Writing.

Capehart left the NYDN for Bloomberg News and served as policy adviser to Michael Bloomberg’s successful campaign for New York City mayor. Capehart returned to the NYDN in 2002 as editorial page deputy editor. He left in 2004 to join the global public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton as senior vice president and counselor of public affairs.

In 2007 Capehart became the youngest member ever to join the editorial board of The Washington Post. His opinions focus on the intersection of social and cultural issues and politics. He hosts his own podcast, “Cape Up,” and is a contributor to MSNBC, regularly serving as a substitute anchor on programs such as “The Cycle” and “Way Too Early.” He has appeared on ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” Reporters Roundtable, and in 2018 he became a guest host of New York Public Radio’s “Midday on WNYC.” 

Capehart often speaks publicly about issues of equality and social justice. He has moderated panel discussions on these topics for the Center for American Progress, the Aspen Institute, the Aspen Ideas Festival and The Atlantic’s Washington Ideas forum. Among other recognition, Capehart was named a 2011 Esteem Honoree—a distinction bestowed on individuals who have made a positive impact on both the African-American and LGBT communities.

In 2017 Capehart married his longtime partner, Nick Schmit, the assistant chief of protocol at the U.S. State Department. The New York Times covered the ceremony at which former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder officiated. The couple lives in Washington, D.C.