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The Advocate, feeling pretty good after celebrating its 40th anniversary, is proud that news features editor Sean Kennedy scored an interview with Sen. Hillary Clinton at the recent Logo/Human Rights Campaign candidates debate here. Four large portraits accompany the cover story, which gushes over Clinton even though, as the magazine notes for the gay readership, "her husband let us down [and] she won't support marriage equality." The news has been that Clinton said she's not a lesbian, but L.A. journalist Karen Ocamb was not impressed by the piece. She lashes the Advocate in a posting at The Billerico Project that says "fear of middle-age and remaining relevant in the instant era of YouTube/Blog-o-mania have nudged the onetime national gay and lesbian newsmagazine 'of record' into a too-hip-to-be-cool smug self-indulgence that wouldn’t know a hard edge if it got nip/tucked."
Sour grapes? You bet. I’ve been bugging the Clinton campaign (and other campaigns) for an interview for a very long time. I’m sure my LGBT press colleagues have as well. But the mainstream mind-set (and I include assimilated gays here too) seems to be that an exclusive Advocate interview is de rigueur, as if the LGBT community is therefore 'handled.'And what did we get? The Sean Kennedy story – oh, and the big news that Hillary’s not a lesbian!
Ocamb wrote for the Advocate in a previous incarnation of the magazine.