A Longitudinal Content Analysis of the Use of Radical and Mainstream, Pro- and Anti-LGBT Organizations as Sources in The New York Times & The Washington Post

ABSTRACT

Public opinion about LGBT rights has shifted dramatically in the last 30 years. This study, a content analysis of 659 news articles from The New York Times and The Washington Post from 1977–2013, examined the use of pro- and anti-LGBT organizations as sources to explore how coverage changed over time and to examine if there were differences in coverage of mainstream LGBT advocacy organizations versus those that are more radical in nature. Results showed that stories about the topics of marriage/families, entertainment, AIDS, politics and protests were the most likely to use LGBT advocacy organizations as sources. Use of radical organizations as sources peaked in the 1990s, when the majority of AIDS and protest stories were published. Anti-LGBT organizations were used as sources in just under 20 percent of the coded stories but stories covering some topics like marriage/families saw much higher rates of anti-LGBT organizational sourcing. Implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• LGBTQ
• media sourcing
• media history
• news coverage
• advocacy groups
• radical organizations
• anti-LGBT organizations
• mainstream organizations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.