Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 09:49:40 +0100
From: glaad@glaad.org (GLAAD)
Subject: MARK JOHNSON NAMED GLAAD'S NEWS MEDIA DIRECTOR

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: William Waybourn
(202) 986-1360



MARK JOHNSON NAMED GLAAD'S NEWS MEDIA DIRECTOR



WASHINGTON, DC --February 19, 1996 -- Mark Johnson has been named News
Media Director of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, according
to Managing Director William Waybourn. In this position, Johnson will
supervise GLAAD's New York office, which monitors print and broadcast media
from throughout the nation to ensure fairness and accuracy respecting
issues of sexual orientation or identity.

Johnson comes to GLAAD from the American Association of Retired Persons
(AARP) in Washington, D.C., where he served as a Legislative Specialist for
more than seven years. In that capacity, he lobbied members of Congress on
such wide-ranging issues as national and community service, age
discrimination and campaign finance reform. Throughout his tenure, he has
also alerted AARP senior staff to the needs and concerns of a growing older
lesbian and gay population.

While at AARP, Johnson worked with the Human Rights Campaign, the National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum and
the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund to aid in advancing their
various organizational goals and to find ways to foster partnerships
between the groups and the AARP.

Before his work for the AARP, Johnson worked as a reporter, covering
Congress for a business journal. He also worked at the two years as a news
assistant at the Washington bureau of the New York Times, where, in
addition to writing several news and feature stories, he had an opportunity
to work on investigative pieces. Johnson left the New York Times to attend
graduate school at the University of Chicago.

For the last several years, Johnson has also been active on a free-lance
basis, as a reporter and writer in the gay community. He has had several
front-page pieces in the Washington Blade, has written for Chicago
Outlines, the Windy City Times, Southern Voice, and published work in other
gay newspapers. Since 1993, his political and social column, "d.c. doin's"
has appeared in SBC magazine, published in Los Angeles. Another political
commentary column, "out this way," appearing in Detroit-based Kick
magazine, will soon celebrate its first anniversary. Johnson has also
started writing fiction and recently published his first short story.

Headshots of Mark Johnson are available from the New York office of GLAAD,
please call Morgan Gwenwald at 212.807.1700.

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Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
glaad@glaad.org
http://www.glaad.org

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, GLAAD, is a national
organization that promotes fair, accurate and inclusive representation of
individuals and events in the media as a means of combatting homophobia and
all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity.
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