By Jen Colletta
PGN Staff WriterGail Shister (
pictured) has grown accustomed to having to break down barriers.
As one of the first out reporters in the journalism industry and the first female sports writer at the Buffalo Evening News, the New Orleans States-Item and the Philadelphia Inquirer, she learned quickly how to hurtle over seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association recognized the strides Shister has made for the LGBT community as it inducted her into its LGBT Journalists Hall of Fame at the organization’s annual convention in Washington, D.C., Aug. 21-24.
Shister and this year’s other inductee, former Village Voice executive editor Richard Goldstein, now join seven other previously inducted LGBT pioneers, such as activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, the late NLGJA founder Leroy Aarons and Sarah Pettit, the late Newsweek editor and co-creator of OUT Magazine.
Although Shister said she was “overwhelmed and tremendously honored” to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, she also proffered another frank attitude about the award: “It makes you feel really old. You think of people in a Hall of Fame as either old or dead; you don’t think of them as being young and virile with biceps of steel like myself,” she said.
The Buffalo, N.Y., native, who started as a sports writer at the Inquirer in 1979, said she was forced to hone her sense of humor decades ago in order to manage the discrimination she faced in the journalism industry.
“It was very, very depressing. I was the first woman in the sports department at the Inquirer, and some of those guys were still living in the Stone Age. They really resented having a woman there,” she said. “Sports is kind of like the last bastion of male supremacy. They don’t want women in the locker room, which the sports department still is at a lot of papers — it’s the equivalent of a locker room. When we’d all be covering the games, the other guys just wouldn’t even speak to me. The hostility was unbelievable.”
Shister joked that the “sheer force of [her] fabulous personality” was influential in solidifying her position in the local newspaper industry.
“I eventually had to prove myself to them and show that I wasn’t going to take any crap from them,” she said. “Eventually, we worked out a decent relationship.”
In 1982, Shister started writing a daily television column for the Inquirer, which was picked up by hundreds of publications across the country.
Although Shister said it was challenging to be one of the few out journalists in the country at that time, she said the fact that she has always been open about her sexual orientation instilled an unshakable confidence in her that has served as a valuable motivator over the years.
“I came out at birth. I’ve been out since God was a boy. I’ve never been in the closet, and I think that’s given me a tremendous advantage, because I haven’t had to use a lot of energy over the years pretending to be someone I wasn’t,” she said. “That energy instead went into my work. It sounds totally ridiculous, but I’ve never doubted my work, my talent, my tenaciousness or my ability to succeed.”
Shister joined the NLGJA in 1991, the year after its founding, and started the local NLGJA chapter the same year. She served as the vice president of the national organization in the 1990s and spent two terms on the NLGJA board.
She noted that she initially became involved with NLGJA to establish camaraderie with other out journalists, who she said were always few and far between.
About 450 LGBT journalists attended last week’s conference, and Shister said she’s still amazed at how much the industry’s attitude toward LGBT journalists has changed since she started in the business — a trend she said NLGJA had a large role in developing.
“Thirty years ago, the idea of a national organization for gay reporters just was unheard of,” she said. “I always felt like the only one. And I’m like Groucho Marx — I hate groups. I don’t belong to any group that would have me as a member. But this group just captured me from day one because it was such a mindblower. I never thought it would happen, but I’m so glad that it did.”
Shister continued her television piece for 25 years until Inquirer management scrapped the column in April 2007 because of employment cutbacks; Shister is now a metro reporter for the paper and writes mostly profile pieces.
Shister said it’s near impossible to select her most memorable interview from the thousands of stories she’s written, but did say she was especially proud of a recent profile she wrote about Dr. Aaron Beck, the father of cognitive therapy.
She said it’s taken some time adjusting to her new reporter position, but that she’s trying to find the silver lining.
“I’m in a whole different milieu now. For 25 years my whole world was TV, and that was taken away from me, so I’ve had to adapt,” she said. “But I have made contacts in worlds that I had had no communication with before. I now know some judges, some big-time political people, some big-time labor people and some big-time lawyers. These are circles I hadn’t traveled in before and fields I had no connection to. So I’m starting from square one, but it’s opening me up to tremendous new vistas that I wouldn’t have known about before. I’m trying to look at the upside of it.”
Shister will celebrate her 29th year with the Inquirer in October and is also beginning her fourth semester teaching a course on TV criticism at the University of Pennsylvania next week.
“Talk about a tough transition,” she said of designing her own course. “I thought creating a syllabus was going to kill me, it was so hard. But I really love it, and the kids seem to love it. I’ve stepped out of Kansas, and I feel happy.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at jen@epgn.com.© 2008 Philadelphia Gay News. Reprinted with permission.
The African documentary A Little Bit of Love: The Making of a Message (http://www.albolmovie.com/) by Philadelphia-based journalist and filmmaker Scott Hatfield (pictured) profiles the efforts of stylish East African musicians who teamed with Ugandan medical personnel to create a powerful HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention song. Hatfield is a member of NLGJA Philadelphia.
Chip Alfred,
Please join NLGJA Philadelphia at Valanni (http://www.valanni.com/) at 1226 Spruce St., Philadelphia, on Sunday, Oct. 26 at 1 p.m. for a chapter brunch! Friends and significant others welcomed! Please take a moment to review the menu and pricing.
