EP 36 – Joseph Darius Jaafari – LOOKOUT
The most punk thing you can do right now is read.
You hear LOOKOUT News throughout the week on GayPHX, bringing us stories and information our community needs to know. But this week, Bily sits down at the Rainbow Tinted Microphone with the person behind that reporting: Joseph Darius Jaafari, founder and editor-in-chief of LOOKOUT News.
Joseph is an Arizona native and investigative journalist whose work has covered military justice, policing, prisons, conversion therapy, homelessness, gender-affirming care, immigration, and the systems that directly affect LGBTQ+ lives.
So why build an entire newsroom specifically for our community?
Joseph takes us back to the beginning of LOOKOUT and the realization that LGBTQ+ people weren’t simply looking for more stories about themselves — they needed journalism that was actually willing to investigate the institutions, policies, and people affecting their lives.
Bily and Joseph dig into what accountability journalism really means, why so much LGBTQ+ media shifted away from watchdog reporting, and what happens when the news organizations doing this work don’t have the resources to follow every story that deserves attention.
They also talk about the increasingly difficult financial reality facing nonprofit and LGBTQ+ journalism. LOOKOUT keeps its reporting free because Joseph believes people shouldn’t have to pay to know what’s happening in their own community — but quality journalism still requires reporters, resources, time, and money.
And then there’s Arizona.
Joseph explains why our state has become a testing ground for policies that can eventually spread across the country and why he’s particularly watching the intersection of LGBTQ+ lives, policing, incarceration, healthcare, and the continued push to criminalize members of our community.
Perhaps the most striking part of the conversation comes when Bily asks whether Joseph still believes investigative journalism can change things.
His answer isn’t the easy inspirational one.
Sometimes journalism changes laws, gets someone released from detention, exposes wrongdoing, or puts information into the hands of someone with the power to act. Other times, its job is simply to make sure someone was watching and somebody wrote it down.
Because today’s reporting becomes tomorrow’s historical record.
Plus, Brian, our Desert Den Daddy, has this week’s Hot 3, and the Amory Pack is back behind the microphones to get us started and bring us home.
🏳️🌈 Catch LGBTQ+ news from LOOKOUT throughout the week on GayPHX.com.
🎙️ Got somebody Bily should bark with? Head to the footer at GayPHX.com and submit an interview request.
📻 And you can now catch Bily live Monday through Friday from 11 AM to 5 PM on the GayPHX livestream.
🐾 Keep up with the pups at AmoryPack.com.
Most importantly, thank you for listening. Our guests can share their stories and we can turn on the microphones, but without you on the other side, we’re just barking in the wind.
This is the GayPHX Podcast.