Kerry Eleveld

Kerry Eleveld is a freelance writer and media consultant who spent four years covering Barack Obama, first as a political reporter on the campaign trail and then as a White House Correspondent for The Advocate. Eleveld has conducted three interviews with President Obama, two during the 2008 election and one in the Oval Office. She is the only reporter from an LGBT news outlet to get a one-on-one sit-down interview with Obama as president. Eleveld has worked as a journalist in different media for 15 years and earned a Master’s degree in journalism from the University of California-Berkeley in 2003. Since she began covering LGBT issues in 2006, Eleveld’s work has won: “Best News Article” in 2006 from the American Veterans for Equal Rights; second place for “Coverage of Election/Politics” in the 2007 New York Press Association's Better Newspaper Contest; first place in the 2007 “Excellence in News Writing” category as well as the 2010 Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for “Excellence in LGBT Media” from the National Gay and Lesbian Journalist Association; and the 2011 “Outstanding Digital Journalism Article” for her weekly View from Washington column from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

Eleveld’s work has been published at Salon, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and the Washington Post. Eleveld also offers insights about political developments to news outlets such as PBS NewsHour, MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times, Washington Post, and the Associated Press.