Three years of brand pullback, and Pride festivals took a massive hit this season — but that’s not the whole story. The smartest brands didn’t leave, they decentralized. Dana Piccoli of News Is Out joined the debut of #ILoveGay Views to talk about what’s actually working: Lime running Pride in Motion across 21+ cities, Levi’s building Together We Ride around queer motorcycle history with the GLBT Historical Society and a $100K gift to Outright International, and AARP funding original local reporting across a dozen queer newsrooms. Plus the finding every media planner should know — the LGBTQ+ Media Mapping Project found 18 U.S. states with no LGBTQ+ media outlet at all.
Everybody already knows the bad news. Brands have been pulling back from LGBTQ+ support for about three years now. Pride festivals took a massive hit this season. The war on DEI is very real, and it has landed on a lot of people we work with every day.
So let’s talk about the other thing that’s happening at the same time — because it’s more interesting, and if you buy media for a living, it’s more useful.
The smartest brands didn’t leave. They decentralized. And we’re launching #ILoveGay Views — a new discussion series on LGBTQ+ media, marketing and advertising — with the person best positioned to explain what that looks like on the ground: Dana Piccoli of News Is Out.
Who News Is Out is, and why it matters right now
News Is Out is a queer media collaborative — seven of the leading LGBTQ+ outlets in the country plus six affiliate publishers, working together for four years now on editorial projects, branded content campaigns and an annual LGBTQ+ Media Day.
The roster is the backbone of this industry: the Washington Blade, Dallas Voice, Windy City Times, The Buckeye Flame in Ohio, and more.
“We’re trying to create a more sustainable future for all queer media,” Dana told us, “and to get the gospel of queer media out into the world — saying we are providing a really important service to our community. We are trusted. We are information hubs. We’re community hubs.”
Hold onto the word trusted. That’s the whole argument.
What the pullback actually looks like from the local level
Dana has been reporting on this directly. She talked to organizers in Alaska whose Pride had to be canceled outright — not just for lack of sponsorship money, but for lack of volunteers.
“Local, especially the midsize and smaller, have really suffered this year,” she said.
And she named the part that stings the most, which isn’t the budget line — it’s the relationship.
“When you are good to the LGBTQ+ community, we are very good back. There’s a lot of brand loyalty there,” she said. “And that’s been tough for our community to see — some of these brands that we thought we could trust really take a big step back in the last couple years.”
The hedge: regional, local, and quietly effective
Here’s the shift. National splash campaigns carry political exposure right now. Local ones don’t — and they never stopped working.
“There are some very recognizable advertisers that have marketing centered in regional or local segments,” Dana said. “You might see really amazing support from the local Toyota dealership advertising in the local LGBTQ+ media outlet… Subaru, Toyota, Planned Parenthood might do a regional campaign with their LGBTQ+ media outlet.”
“Local advertising has always been the backbone of queer media,” she added. “It’s great to see familiar brands with these local touches.”
Regional volunteerism, local Pride org partnerships, employee-focused events, and narrowly targeted local media are quietly replacing the one-size-fits-all national moment. Less headline risk, more community proof.
Two campaigns doing it right
Lime ran Pride in Motion in 21-plus cities at once — rainbow-wrapped scooters, yes, but the substance was becoming a partner to local Pride festivals and routing real support into individual cities rather than one national buy.
Levi’s went a different direction with Together, We Ride, building a line around queer motorcycle culture — a history most people outside the community don’t know exists, even though Dykes on Bikes has led San Francisco Pride for decades. Levi’s teamed with the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco to get it right, and paired it with a $100,000 donation to Outright International.
Dana’s read on it was immediate.
“I love that Levi’s did the opposite of [pinkwashing],” she said. “They did their research. They reached into the community. They reached into our history. It felt really thoughtful and authentic… When you have so many places that are stepping back, either loudly or very quietly, it was really great to see Levi’s take a big step in that direction.”
Neither of these is a traditional media buy. Both are real support with a local address. That’s the model.
Branded content that funds actual journalism
The other thing News Is Out does well is turn a brand partnership into editorial capacity across the whole network. The example Dana pointed to was Out and Aging, a series supported by AARP.
“We were able to fund writers and editorial to go into our communities and talk to people about receiving care, about giving care, about being caregivers, about what it’s like to be aging in our community,” she said. Every News Is Out outlet participated, plus the national hub.
One sponsor. A dozen local newsrooms. Original reporting in each of their markets. That’s a very different return than a banner flight.
The Media Mapping Project — and the 18 states nobody’s covering
If you want the data behind all of this, News Is Out built it.
The LGBTQ+ Media Mapping Project was the brainchild of Tracy Baim, co-founder of Windy City Times, produced with the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and released in September 2025 after a year of research. It surfaced 107 LGBTQ+ media outlets nationwide, with 80 responding to the survey.
Two findings you should carry into every media plan you build:
Eighteen U.S. states have no LGBTQ+ media outlet at all. Not a smaller one. Not a struggling one. None.
And nearly half of the outlets that do exist operate on annual budgets under $100,000 — often with no full-time staff.
There’s an interactive map at newsisout.com where you can find your local outlets — and see the gaps. Then there’s the companion limited-series podcast, The Map of Us, where News Is Out members interviewed each other and their communities to make the research land in a way a PDF never will.
“We’ve had over 10,000 listens to a very niche podcast on a very niche topic,” Dana said. “I’m really thrilled with that.”
What this means if you’re planning 2027
Hyper-local is the hedge — but it’s not a consolation prize. It’s the version of LGBTQ+ marketing that was always more durable, and this moment is simply making that obvious.
Local LGBTQ+ media is trusted in a way national platforms aren’t. Local Pride partnerships are visible to the people who actually live there. Regional campaigns can be measured, repeated and defended internally. And a $25,000 local program in six markets buys more genuine goodwill than one national placement that everyone forgets by July.
The infrastructure is thin — eighteen states with nothing at all should tell you that. Which means dollars placed here don’t just reach the community. They keep the community’s newsrooms alive.
Watch the conversation
The full episode of #ILoveGay Views with Dana Piccoli is up now on the Pink Media / #ILoveGay YouTube channel. Watch it here.
Learn more about the collaborative, the Media Mapping Project and The Map of Us at newsisout.com.
If you’re working on a city-by-city LGBTQ+ strategy for the year ahead and want help figuring out where it should land, let’s talk.
