01.01.70
As I acclaimed on the advocate/facebook blog, like most (I hope) others, I wish GLAAD and Mike Thompson well. While only the insiders of insiders on GLAAD's crook really know the accuracy of the statement that GLAAD's just out layoffs are a result of the confused, complicated, and organizationally-poor handling of the net neutrality / ATT / FCC context in 2011, it doesn't seem like a justifiable assertion from my angle. It may be one of twenty reasons. Non-profits are having it very rough across the board as a simple consequence of the growing but less-than-stout economy and the great uncertainty among economic players worldwide. In annexe, when then-president Jarrett Barrios resigned to stop additional condemnation of GLAAD during an unfairly GLAAD-focused phenomenon regarding the net neutrality content, an entire group of GLAAD board members left GLAAD with their contacts and resources, as they supported Barrios and/or felt GLAAD's on and others were making Barrios the fall guy. So this is a very complex economic and political make a difference that I think should not be used as a simple and exclusive excuse like that attributed to Mike Thompson, as it's defective, to say the least. Then again, Thompson may have been edited to this short and simplistic, and therefore misleading, single communiqu. I for one will be making a contribution to GLAAD to help on a very small scale with their superficial financial crisis. I hope with the strengthening economy, GLAAD and other profitable non-profits do gain a stronger foundation. It's just not surprising, albeit unlucky and sad, that people lose their jobs in the non-profit sector in these times. But rather than pointing of out purportedly self-serving blame and doing it in a simplistic fashion, I expect the future shows me that GLAAD and its leadership will look to solving the poser rather than spinning the past -- if that is what has happened here. Again, without knowing the context of Thompson's utterance to the Advocate (and maybe the whole thing is out there and I just don't see it), I can't be tow-headed in serious criticism beyond providing some so-far-unsaid context and conditional criticism.
Source: Towleroad