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As I reported earlier this morning – as Jarrett Barrios’s resignation from GLAAD swirled in the headlines, the larger unexplored question is how many other organizations in the LGBT community were equally culpable in sending out a variant of the anti-Net Neutrality letter crafted by AT&T. Just a cursory search on the FCC web site turned up letters from Equality California and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
I just received this email with a statement from Rea Carey of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force related to its letter to the FCC re: Net Neutrality and AT&T:
Statement from Rea Carey, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force:“The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force submitted a letter to the Federal Communications Commission on Jan. 5, 2010, about rules and regulations regarding net neutrality. The letter was a response to a request by AT&T. However, we quickly realized that we had not gone through an appropriate internal process on such policy matters and that the Jan. 5 letter did not accurately reflect our views and was a mistake. As a result, on Jan. 14, the Task Force submitted an additional letter to the FCC clarifying the organization’s position on net neutrality. Both letters are attached.
“The Task Force has established a clearer internal review process that applies to any request for sign-on or policy endorsement from any group, organization or corporate partner. We have not issued any additional letters on net neutrality. Additionally the Task Force has declined requests from our corporate partner AT&T for further action regarding this issue and declined requests to write a letter regarding the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile.”
You can read the first letter and the retraction. Karen Ocamb asked about the situation at Equality California:
AT&T is also the biggest sponsor of Equality California. However, in a phone interview Monday morning, June 20, EQCA Interim Executive Director Jim Carroll told me that EQCA has “no position” on the merger of AT&T and did not send any letter supporting that merger. However, former executive director Geoff Kors, who is currently in Italy, did send a letter to the FCC “reflecting Equality California’s support for an open and accessible internet and asked the FCC to reach out to the LGBT community.”
As far as the current situation at GLAAD goes, this was the statement provided by board co-chair Roxanne Jones to Metro Weekly:
“The GLAAD Board received Jarrett’s resignation letter, and we discussed this, along with many other topics, on our call last night, so we expect at our board of directors meeting – we have another one set for Wednesday – to reach a conclusion on all of the issues at hand,” Jones said. “And at the time, Jarrett will begin to help us transition, manage the transition that we have, and bring on his successor.“So, that’s exactly where we are right now.”
You see, the long view is that our organizations have been sloppy, and acting on behalf of the community while hopping in bed with corporations with money to burn that will have a negative impact on the community. This is a terrible development that needs sunlight on it – are boards doing their duty?
Also see:
* The twists and turns in the story of GLAAD’s executive director’s resignation
* GLAAD/AT&T Fallout Continues as New Groups Admit Involvement
12 Comments
It’s the old tit for tatAnd it is exactly what Russ Feingold was warning about the Democratic party and the Super PAC’s.
Equality Forum & NBC/ComcastAnother organization out of PA called “Equality Forum” posted comments in favor of the NBC/Comcast merger:
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/…
Even though I was against the merger of NBC & Comcast due to cablesystem ownership in the same market as an NBC O&O, these comments confirm a relationship between the broadcast station and the community and as a local organization, I felt was appropriate.
I can’t help wonderinghow long it will be before Barrios signs on with AT&T as some sort of “community liaison” or “community relations specialist” or some such.
So let me see if I understand the situationAT&T (among other, presumably) have been giving large donations to GLAAD, NGLTF and other gay rights group. These groups, otherwise strapped for cash, become hooked on the easy money. When this net neutrality thing came up, AT&T told them “We’ve been supporting you; how about you support us? You wouldn’t want to be cut off, would you?” So the organizations, in the persons of higher ups with a vested interest in maintaining the income, started to turn tricks for their dealer “off the record.”
We have seen this problem before, with regards to political contributions. This is just the way America does business.
Yes, it is a scandal. But what can be done about it?
It’s generally the casewhich is to say it’s rarely NOT the case, that regulatory bodies–including watchdog groups like GLAAD–tend to get overly cozy with the industries they’re supposed to regulate. Today’s revelations that the government’s nuclear oversight people keep relaxing their regulations for their pals in the nuclear industry is sadly typical. GLAAD is unfortunately just one more example.
It truly is the age of Gay IncInterlocking coprorate arrangements, selling out the common good in other areas to get funding for gay causes
It wasn’t just gay organizations, and it was about more than $$$Other progressive organizations did something similar, from what I’ve read. Apparently the merger is seen as a choice between net neutrality and union rights for the T-Mobile employees, which they would have at AT&T but not T-Mobile. Are you a good coalition partner and support the pro-union path, or do you support the net neutrality path.
Troup CoronadoWhat about Troup Coronado? Why isn’t anyone calling for his “resignation”?
It’s the “nonprofit industry”.I had a brief involvement (summer internship) awhile back with a nonprofit group; I was shocked to see how invasive the mindset of “the nonprofit industry” can be. There’s a whole way of doing business (and it is, in important senses, business) in terms of nonprofit orgs which has just become an ossified set of doctrines regarding playing nice with the corporations, promoting a good conservative-friendly media image, etc. And it’s not like the doctrines of the “nonprofit industry”, carried from NPO job to NPO job by a whole sector of people who are distinguishable from generic middle management mostly by the fact that they mean well and want to do some good, are even evidence-based. There are a whole set of ideas, developed in a corporate context, which just happen to conclude that working with the corporate masters is the only road to nonprofit org success. It’s toxic — and Gay Inc. seems to be just the devoted gay branch of that whole corporate-nonprofit cult.
What would you say the cause of that is?(Asking because, well, I run a non profit, lol, and I have my own ideas about why that is, but I’m always interested in hearing from others.)
As a whole…I’m personally hoping the AT&T / T-Mobile merger is shot to hell and ended.
But it really doesn’t have much to do with this.
I’m also opposed to the effort by AT&T to do get around and end net neutrality. I’m a poor girl — no way can afford to pay extra just so I can watch a film or go to a site.
And that is the plan — literally.
It also means that providers — such as AT&T — can block sites (like, oh, I don’t know, maybe WBC or perhaps even the HRC) if they kill it.
Given that the general story appears to me to be that Mr. Barrios didn’t even really pay attention to it, I’m saddened by the scandal as a whole.
Especially since, were net neutrality to be killed, GLAAD would be in a position to say to its corporate partner that perhaps AT&T should block certain sites from being around.
I mean, I can think of more than a few people who would love to see the AFA, WBC, TVC, NOM, and so forth blocked from the internet without having to pay an additional fee that feeds into the “Gay, Inc.” coffers.
Of course, that’s censorship, right?
I don’t know, really.I’m not as directly involved in the behind-the-scenes part of the process as I’d need to be to really understand it. I mean, plenty of the details make sense in most contexts, or are just basic ways of making an office run well — but in time it can creep, until the main goal of the nonprofit is its own continued existence, with the original goals being abandoned somewhere along the way.