Next year’s media reform conference is in Minneapolis June 6-8th I was at last year’s in Memphis and covered a lot of it on my podcast. There was a film about gays in the media in one afternoon session and a lot of discussion about the lack of diversity at the conference in a women in media session. Freepress.org hosts the conference and is currently looking for suggestions for speakers, panalists & presenters for 2008. Here’s a copy of my suggestion that I just sent them…val
Eileen Chaiken is the Creater of Showtime’s hit series The L-Word.
Last year’s conference brought to light the fact that there was little coverage of LGBT’S & media. Eileen’s story of how she was able to bring a hit show like L-Word about Lesbians to Showtime is a great one. How can we have more shows that reflect our lives? What battles did she fight to make it a success? What can we learn from her experiences?
In the Lesbian world this is the hottest show on Television. We have parties around the country to celebrate the season premier…EVERY SEASON! We go on cruises to meet the cast. It’s a part of our “pop culture” both in the Gay world and the younger college age crowd.
GLBT’s represent to potential advertisers 8 Billion dollars a year! (HRC stats) We spend money on travel, big ticket items, homes and more. Many of us do not have kids meaning we have more “disposable income” than others. If not for the religious right, advertisers would be clambering to reach us.
Diversity in Media begins with opening doors to everyone. How about showing how it’s done by opening a few more doors at next year’s conference?
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