Member Q&A: Chip Alfred

Chip Alfred,
Communications Director,
Equality Forum, Philadelphia

Q. Tell us about your career path.
A: It’s been a long and windy road from San Francisco to Tampa to North Carolina to South Florida to Kentucky to Philly in February 2008. Before moving to the City of Brotherly Love, I worked as a TV Promotion Director and freelanced as a writer for GLBT publications. My job at Equality Forum gives me the opportunity to do the work I love while making a difference in the GLBT community. I am also teaching TV Promotion part-time and coaching students at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting in Cherry Hill.

Q. What brought you to Philadelphia?
A: I was ready for a change, after 17 years in TV, and wanted to be in a bigger, gay-friendly city. When the opportunity came up at Equality Forum, all the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together.

Q: What do you think are the most important issues GLBT journalists face today?
A: It’s become more and more challenging for a GLBT weekly or month publication to survive in this world of “fast-food news.” The proliferation of Internet news sites and blogs has made the industry much more competitive and the demand for news much more instantaneous. If the GLBT community wants to continue to have quality newspapers and magazines dealing with our issues, we as a community, along with GLBT and gay-friendly businesses, need to support the GLBT media more.

Q: What do you love most about the city?
A: Still considering myself a relative newbie here, there is a lot of this area I have yet to see. I have to say the most amazing thing to me is the gay-welcoming nature of this city – evidenced most prominently by the rainbow-colored street signs in the gayborhood. Just the fact that there is an official “gayborhood” means a lot to someone who has spent a considerable amount of time living in the Bible Belt.

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