by Joe Siegel

SAN FRANCISCO — The City by the Bay played host this year to the annual convention of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists. The gathering was held September 10-13, 2026, at the Hyatt Regency in the city’s Financial District.

The convention is a mix of panel discussions, networking sessions and social gatherings. This year, panels focused on subjects such as artificial intelligence in journalism, inclusion in LGBTQ media and the different ways journalists can reach their audiences. 

During the convention, Rick Stuckey was named the new national board president of NLGJA. Stuckey works for NBC News Chicago as a videographer, editor, and live truck operator.

Dana Piccoli, editor of the queer media collective News is Out, and Dennis Valera, of CBS News Baltimore, were elected to their first terms on the organization’s board as at-large directors. Immediate Past President Ken Miguel, of ABC News San Francisco, was also elected to an at-large director position, along with Erik Hall, managing editor of The Telegraph in Alton, Ill., who completed his service as vice president of print and online after reaching the position’s term limit.

Stuckey appointed Bethany Grace Howe, a transgender researcher and consultant, and Kristina Torres, associate vice chancellor of leadership communications at Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, to one-year terms as at-large directors. Two additional one-year appointments are anticipated and will be announced at a later date.

Howe and Torres join continuing board members Jen Christensen of CNN, vice president of broadcast; Ernesto Mourelo, vice president, Digital News at Hearst Television, treasurer; and at-large directors Jimmy L. Gibbs of JLG Consulting Group; TV news anchor and correspondent Femi Redwood; Ken Schneck, editor of the Buckeye Flame, based in suburban Cleveland, Ohio; and Dan Spears, deputy sports strategist at the USA TODAY Center for Community Journalism.

The convention also featured the recipients of the group’s Excellence in Journalism Awards.

New York Times opinion columnist Lydia Polgreen was named Journalist of the Year.

The Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for the LGBTQ+ Journalist of the Year was awarded to Evan Urquhart, a trans journalist and the founding editor of Assigned Media.

Jim Provenzano, arts and nightlife editor for San Francisco’s Bay Area Reporter, was presented with the Lisa Ben Award for Achievement in Features coverage.

Other notable award winners in LGBTQ media included Sam Donndelinger for “Gay Boys and Sex Trafficking: An Under-Resourced Epidemic” in Uncloseted Media in the  Excellence in Long Form Journalism category; Mark S. King for “Exposed Document Links HIV Leaders to ‘Betrayal of People with HIV‘” for MyFabulousDisease.com in the Excellence in Blogging category; and Cyd Ziegler, Jim Buzinski and editors for “Ballin’ Out: LGBTQ athletes on the USA Women’s Wheelchair Basketball Team” for outsports.com in the Excellence in Digital Video category. (For a complete list of winners, go to https://www.nlgja.org/blog/2026/06/eij2026/)

The San Francisco Bay Times was the 2026 recipient of NLGJA’s Legacy Award. This award recognizes an outlet, publication or news organization that has exhibited innovative, high-quality and sustained news coverage of the LGBTQ+ community over an extended period of time, according to the organization.

“The San Francisco Bay Times has been a reliable source for our community for almost fifty years,” said Adam Pawlus, NLGJA executive director. “This paper helped open doors for queer journalists, and it’s still doing that work today, supporting and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized communities. We’re honored to recognize their commitment to queer journalism.”

NLGJA also announced its latest inductees into its LGBTQ+ Journalists Hall of Fame. They are André Leon Talley, Joseph Lovett and Sallie Maranda Fiske.

Talley, who died in 2022, was an American fashion journalist, stylist, creative director, author and editor-at-large of Vogue magazine. He was the first Black man to serve as creative director at Vogue, and throughout his career he advocated for diversity in the fashion industry.

Lovett, who died in 2025, was an award-winning television producer, director and documentary filmmaker known for his work shedding light on the HIV and AIDS epidemic.

Fiske, who died in 2004, was a pioneering television journalist and a lesbian activist in California. She was among the first women to work in broadcast journalism in Los Angeles.

“Each of this year’s inductees expanded what was possible for queer people in American media, whether by speaking hard truths about their own lives at real professional risk or by the sheer, undeniable fact of their visibility,” said Pawlus, “and each left the profession more open than they found it.”

IN THE NEWS
Volume 28
Issue 8