Interview with GLAAD Former Board Co-Chair Laurie Perper

When the news broke on the blogs that the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation bizarrely endorsed the ATT/T-Mobile merger with a letter of support to the FCC, I decided to speak with former GLAAD board co-chair Laurie Perper, who made some serious allegations about why that endorsement happened. (The audio of the full interview is below).

Perper came into the studio today for an in-depth interview in which she said that GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios supported the merger in a letter to the FCC by trading favors with GLAAD board member Troup Coronado, a recent ATT official. Barrios, she said, needed his support because of anumber resignations of board members and staffers (unhappy with Barrios), and dwindling support for Barrios among the rest of the board. BShe revealed quite a few other things as well and made other allegations. I will go through and pull out some key points to transcribe later on. We have offered Barrios to come on and respond but GLAAD has not returned our calls all day.


Update: Perper calls for GLAAD to be completely dissolved. Says that other groups can take up the work and that GLAAD's brand is damaged.

Update: Perper says that Barrios wrote a letter to FCC opposed to Net Neutrality but then withdrew it after an uproar. However, in his retraction Barrios said the letter was not from him, and was not his signature. She claims that he told people his secretary wrote the letter without his permission when in fact he had written it. (GLAAD curiously had not launch an investigation into the allegedly forged letter.)

Update: GLAAD did get back to us in the evening and Jarrett Barrios will be on the show tomorrow, 2:30 ET.