Journalist and activist Ann Northrop is stepping down as co-host and co-executive producer with Andy Humm of the weekly national Gay USA cable television news show after a 30-year run — longer than Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.
“It has been a fascinating privilege to do this work, to follow the progress of the LGBTQ+ movement on such an intimate, day-by-day basis,” said Northrop.
While she has shared her breast cancer experience with viewers in the last year, Northrop said that this had nothing to do with her retirement from the program.
“My health is fine now,” she said. “But I’m ready for new adventures.”
Her last show — with Humm — will be taped on July 29. She told viewers that she wants to go back to “street activism” and other activities that the weekly grind of gathering and presenting LGBTQ and AIDS news from around the world had left less time for.
Indeed, Northrop came to the show as a veteran journalist in mainstream media and as an activist, especially with ACT UP in the 1980s and ‘90s. She and Humm worked together in the education department of the Hetrick-Martin Institute for LGBTQ youth in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s — doing classes on homosexuality and AIDS for both students and youth-serving professionals at a time when New York was finally taking seriously the risk that young people had for HIV.
“Gay USA: TV’s Weekly LGBT News Hour” originates each Wednesday at Manhattan Neighborhood Network, directed by Rich Speziale with veteran gay activist Bill Bahlman as associate producer. The show is distributed nationally by Free Speech TV to the Dish Network, DirecTV, and local cable systems. The show is also available on YouTube and as a podcast. More info at gayusatv.org.
The show began as one of the productions of legendary cable TV producer Lou Maletta’s Gay Cable Network in the 1980s — when Humm was first a correspondent for it — through 2000 when Maletta retired and the show moved to MNN.
“In 1996, Ann was the only person I could think of who could bring the depth of knowledge and reporting skills needed to do Gay USA,” Humm said. “Had she turned me down I might have stopped doing it back then and moved on to something else. But she said yes immediately and it has been an honor and a pleasure to work with her ever since — not just because she is such a great reporter and activist, but because of her attention to so much of the detail that keeps the show going behind the scenes.”
Humm intends to keep the doing the show after Northrop retires. A number of regular guest co-hosts are on board, including Jay W. Walker, Cathy Marino-Thomas, and Chris Cooper.
“I’ll be looking to bring more diverse voices to the table who can carry on a one-hour conversation conveying and analyzing the news of the week,” he said. Guest co-hosts can do the show from the studio or via Streamyard from anywhere in the world (with good WiFi). Contact Andy Humm at andy@gayusatv.org if you’d like to apply.
“Our viewers have already expressed how much they will miss Ann — as, of course, will I,” said Humm. “But we hope to keep the show going as an essential resource, especially for people in more isolated parts of the country and the world at a time when our rights are under tremendous assault.”
