Leadership Award
The NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Leadership Award, sponsored by Randy Lovely and the Gannett Foundation, recognizes individuals who have made a positive impact on their newsrooms by increasing diversity and improving coverage of the LGBTQ community. The recipients of the award may not necessarily be active journalists themselves, but have nonetheless used their work to improve the news industry and the journalism profession.
This Year’s Winner
Michael Bolden
Michael D. Bolden is the Dean of the School of Journalism and a Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley. He is the former CEO of the American Press Institute (API). Dean Bolden has worked as a local reporter and national editor, a teacher, a nonprofit leader and a champion of inclusion and belonging. He has accomplished this work at the intersection of media, entrepreneurship and civic engagement in senior roles at The Washington Post (where he helped merge the digital and print newsrooms), the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Stanford University, the San Francisco Chronicle and API. He is a graduate of the University of Alabama and Stanford University.
Past Award Winners
Jahna Berry
Jahna Berry, winner of the 2025 NLGJA Leadership Award, is a media executive, an expert on leadership, management, nonprofits, and diversity in the workplace, as well as Chief Operating Officer at the Center for Investigative Reporting, which was named a Pulitzer...
Yvette Miley
Yvette M. Miley is the 2024 recipient of the NLGJA Leadership Award. Miley serves as Executive Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the NBCU News Group and Head of NBCUAcademy. Her responsibilities include recruiting and retention, training and...
Ryan Williams
Ryan Williams is the recipient of the 2023 NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Leadership Award. Williams is the Digital and Special Events Producer at the D.C. Public Library. Since joining at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ryan has successfully produced...
David Plazas
David Plazas is the recipient of the 2021 NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Leadership Award. Plazas is the Opinion and Engagement Director for the USA TODAY Network in Tennessee and for the Tennessean. He has written award-winning editorials and columns on...
Errin Haines
Errin Haines is the recipient of the 2022 NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Leadership Award. Haines is editor at large and a co-founding member of The 19th, a nonprofit, independent newsroom focused on the intersection of gender, politics and policy. She is...
Arlyn Gajilan
Arlyn Gajilan is the recipient of the 2019 NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Leadership Award. She is the deputy managing editor for operations at Reuters. Gajilan helps manage the news agency’s bureaus from Toronto to Santiago and San Francisco...
Carolyn Ryan
Carolyn Ryan is the recipient of the 2018 NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Leadership Award. She is the assistant managing editor at The New York Times. In this position she oversees the recruiting of journalists to The Times. Before she was...
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