About Keen News Service

Keen News Service is a professional news organization specializing in national political and legal news that involves or affects gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. We deliver that news to interested readers through select means: gay newspaper clients, websites of LGBT community-based organizations, and through our own website—keennewsservice.com.

From the White House, Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court to state ballot battles, right-wing tactics, federal election campaigns, and major court cases around the country, Keen News Service aims to bring readers reliable information about significant news developments–and deliver that information in a way that is both coherent and in context.

Reliable – Keen News Service was founded and is headed by a well-known and respected gay journalist, Lisa Keen. She has won awards for her work from the American Bar Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. From her 18 years as editor of The Washington Blade—and the start-up sister paper, the New York Blade—she built a reputation based on being tough but fair. She asks the hard questions and she doesn’t publish quotes from anonymous sources taking potshots at their enemies. She works with a select group of other veteran gay journalists and vets their material carefully.

Coherent – Most Americans are literally inundated with information these days, making it increasingly difficult to find meaningful news in the short amount of time most people have to search for it. With the internet, a proliferation of blogs and news aggregation sites, and the 24/7 television news channels, finding important LGBT news is a little like trying to hear a caller on a cell phone while standing in a stadium of wildly screaming football fans. Keen News Service doesn’t try to overwhelm you with volume or quantity. We weed through the noise and chatter to find news of consequence that has impact or historical significance in LGBT people’s lives, and news that can enable readers to take action to influence events. And, on our website, we deliver it without assaulting your senses with a cascade of blinking ads.

Context – A recent story1 in The Washington Post noted: “About 57 percent of Americans oppose granting same-sex marriages legal status, compared with 40 percent who support it, according to a May Gallup poll.” But what it failed to note was that just five years ago only 30 percent2 of Americans supported allowing gay couples to marry. It failed to note that similar polls found closer results3. And it failed to note that, in 1948, 20 years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the constitution protects the right of interracial couples to marry, 90 percent of Americans opposed allowing interracial couples to marry. While mainstream media are doing a better job than ever of covering LGBT-related news, their coverage seldom reaches below the surface. They don’t look for gay-specific provisions in a general health care reform bill.

No one relies on just one source for news these days, but our choices are beginning to all look the same—too many news-related websites now have become simple aggregators—all offering a list of stories with links to a wire service that makes little effort to ensure that its LGBT coverage is well-informed or in-depth. Keen News Service is for readers who need—not a battery of celebrity gossip and shrill commentary but—a depth of coverage on important LGBT news.

Keen News Service clients include:

Read more about Lisa Keen.

1“Benefits for same-sex partners are expanding,” Washington Post, November 27, 2009.
2NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll in March 2004, surveying 1,009 adults nationwide.
3An Associated Press/National Constitutional Center Poll in September 2009 found 52 percent opposed and 46 percent support the right of gay couples to marry