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Comings & Goings
Mack takes VP role at Kennedy Center; Finzel creates D.C. media list
The ‘Comings & Goings’ column chronicles important life changes of Blade readers.
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
Jeffrey J. Mack
Congratulations to Jeffrey J. Mack on his new position as Vice President of Development, Individual Campaigns for the Kennedy Center. The Kennedy Center, located on the banks of the Potomac River near the Lincoln Memorial in D.C., opened to the public in September 1971. But its roots date back to 1958, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed bipartisan legislation creating a National Cultural Center. To honor Eisenhower’s vision for such a facility, one of the Kennedy Center’s theaters is named for him. Prior to accepting this position, Mack was Chief Development Officer and co-interim Executive Director of the Washington National Opera (WNO).
Jonathan Thomas, The Kennedy Center’s manager of national and international advancement, said of Mack’s hiring, “In his tenure as WNO’s Chief Development Officer, Jeff transformed the Development operation for the Opera and has helped to create a greater sense of unity between WNO’s fundraising staff and the rest of the company. WNO has also seen tremendous fundraising growth during his tenure. In the past year, Jeff has also undertaken additional responsibility in leading WNO as he held interim executive director responsibilities.”
Mack is a nonprofit fundraiser with 22 years of experience. His previous positions included Chief Development Officer for the American Red Cross and Director of Development for the Point Foundation. He has also worked for Outfest Film Festival, the Human Rights Campaign, and the University of Wyoming. He earned his bachelor’s in political science at the University of Wyoming.
Ben Finzel has announced a new D.C. LGBT communications list he has begun. He created a private list and Facebook group of DC LGBT professionals in the communications arena (e.g. PR, marketing, public affairs, publicity, branding, digital/social, etc.). The objective of the group is to foster professional development and networking among LGBT communications professionals in D.C.
The list and Facebook group are private and are not shared with anyone. The purpose of the list is professional and is limited to sharing news of job openings, new hires and events the group will host throughout the year to build connections among the D.C. LGBT communications community.
The list concept is based on Atlanta Family Communicators, a listserv begun in Atlanta 15 years ago by Atlanta PR pro Jim Brams. The D.C. list is called DC Family Communicators and will be allied with the Atlanta list so that users can share information (and job leads) and help foster greater community among LGBT communications professionals.
While there are other existing LGBT or communications lists in D.C., Finzel said there is not a list solely intended for D.C. LGBT communications professionals. He believes there are still many LGBT communications professionals who don’t know each other in D.C. and this will help them to network with each other.
If you would like to join the list send an email to [email protected].
Ben Finzel
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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