NBC’s Joe Fryer On Celebrating Pride Month With LGBTQ Freedoms Under Attack: ‘Visibility Is Vital’

For NBC’s Joe Fryer, it’s been quite a month. One week ago, NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists announced Fryer as the recipient of one of the group’s highest individual awards, the Journalist of the Year, which “honors an LGBTQ journalist whose exceptional abilities, integrity and distinctive work brought honor to the profession within the past year.”

For Fryer, who serves as a correspondent for NBC News and anchors the network’s morning newscast on the NBC News Now streaming platform, the award means being honored by a group Fryer first heard about when he was a college student and worked to establish an NLGJA chapter at NorthwesternNWE
University. “It was eye-opening to learn that there were openly LGBTQ journalists working in the industry and supporting each other,” Fryer told me this week. “And even today, I still find that very comforting, especially when we all gather at the annual convention.”

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That sense of community, of course, is what Pride Month is all about, and yet as Fryer opened his NBC News Now special report Pride and Backlash this month, he noted that this year, the “celebration is mixed with trepidation” as many of the LGBTQ+ community’s hard-won freedoms are under attack. More than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in states across the country, including bills aimed at denying healthcare to transgender children or preventing them from playing sports. “For all that progress that’s been made, the LGBTQ community is facing increasing backlash and intimidation,” Fryer said in the special, which can be viewed on demand on Peacock and NBCNews.com.

“I honestly get excited when Pride month approaches each year,” Fryer told me. “When the emails and calls start pouring in for various projects. NBC does such a great job putting together stories, panels and video campaigns that are focused on the LGBTQ community and shining a light on our LGBTQ employees – including the many amazing employees who work behind the camera.”

As part of NBC’s “Pride is Universal” campaign, Fryer hosted a “TODAY All Day” special that’s streaming on TODAY.com that focuses on LGBTQ “trailblazers in their hometowns and industries,” including “queer cattle ranchers” and others breaking stereotypes. “I’m not only grateful that we produce stories that win awards from GLAAD and the NLGJA,” Fryer told me. “But also that we do a great job of sharing that news with our viewers. Saturday TODAY, a show I’m part of, took time during the show to announce each of those awards, which was a wonderful reminder of the network’s support.”

Fryer says being at NBC, being out, and being able to cover this moment in history is light years from his experience as a young reporter working in local news. “I was working at a TV station in the late 90s, and county leaders were considering a ‘fairness ordinance’ to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in employment and housing,” Fryer told me. “I mentioned it to an assignment editor as a story we should cover, and I’ll never forget that person’s response: something along the lines of, ‘Gay rights? I don’t give a damn about gay rights.’ I’ll never forget it. While I was out in my personal life, I was not out at work. And that sent a message that I should stay in the closet and that stories about my community were not going to be embraced.”

Today, Fryer hears from viewers—some who watch his streaming newscast and others who see him on NBC’s traditional broadcasts like Today—who tell him seeing an out journalist covering stories about the LGBTQ community has meant a lot to them, and even helped some to consider coming out themselves.

“I did not stay in the closet,” Fryer told me, reflecting on that encounter with a local TV assignment editor. “I chose to be my authentic self. And I wasn’t alone. As an industry, I think we’re doing a much better job of thoughtfully covering LGBTQ issues because more openly LGBTQ people are working in the industry – both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, as managers, producers, photojournalists and more. That makes a huge difference.”

With each story he tells—during Pride and through the course of the rest of the year—Fryer believes he’s making a difference. “We’re telling people-driven stories that really focus on the humanity of the LGBTQ community. And those stories have a huge impact. I always say: visibility is vital.”