Petrelis Files

Gay Leader's Pay Cut 15%;
GLAAD's ED = $300K?

(Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU.)

The NY Times' charities and non-profit foundations reporter Stephanie Strom today writes about the American Civil Liberties Union losing a big donation, forcing more belt-tightening at the org:

Late last year, suffering from a decline in charitable giving caused by the economic downturn as well as the loss of income from two foundations hit by the Bernard L. Madoff scandal, the A.C.L.U. pared 10 percent of its national staff, or 36 jobs, and [executive director Anthony] Romero agreed to a 15 percent cut in his salary, reducing it to $302,048 this year, compared with $355,000 in the prior year.

No mention is made about Romero being openly gay and I'm not sure if the Times has a duty to always inform readers when the executive director of a non-gay-specific advocacy org is gay. It's probably the responsibility of bloggers to point out his sexual orientation, and I'm happy to oblige.

I wonder how many average gays or civil rights activists are gonna lose sleep at night worrying how Romero is surviving on his reduced pay.

On a related matter, a reporter in Southern California emailed me yesterday in response to my post regarding GLAAD's Jarrett Barrios not disclosing his salary level, and said it's rumored he's receiving $300,000 in pay.

It would be great if the media org just posted his salary on their site, instead of refusing to divulge it to me, a lowly gay blogger. Anyone care to wager that if the Times' Strom called GLAAD to find out what his compensation is, the org would disclose it?

If that were to happen, some might say GLAAD has a double-standard about who they reveal certain info to, but it's hard to think that GLAAD has many ethical standards to begin with.

We regularly see corporate media outlets covering Wall Street salaries, and we need to see the straight and gay press, and gay bloggers too, routinely reporting on salaries and compensation packages for new hires and tenured executives at Gay Inc orgs.

One gay paper that either reports the new hires' salaries, or points out that they refused to divulge it, is the Bay Area Reporter, if anyone needs an example of how gay papers should report the pay facts at our advocacy groups.