Chris Heinbaugh grew up in California and has lived and worked all over the country as a TV reporter.

Chris Heinbaugh

By way of Seattle, he settled in North Texas with WFAA-TV eight years ago. Shortly thereafter, Heinbaugh made a decision to publicly address his sexual orientation. For him, being in the closet was more difficult than coming out.

While concerns over sexual identity face millions of people every day in the workplace, Heinbaugh helped set a bar in local media, and he went on to set another in politics when he became Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert’s chief of staff.

Heinbaugh has proven in six short years that being gay doesn’t have to be a constant or gossipy topic of conversation on a personal or public level.

---

Dallas Voice: In some regard you are a role model, do you have any advice for young people?
Heinbaugh: When I decided to come out, I recognized that in my position it would be important for a lot of people out there who respect me or like my work. If they knew that factor about me, they might be more accepting  in general. … For me it was important to go ahead and do that. There are a lot of gays in the news industry here locally that aren’t out. I made a conscious decision to be out and vocal. It did not hurt at all. But it’s all in your approach, too. I did not make a big deal about it. I just started adding it to the back of conversations. Most of these people already knew on some level, and it just erased the question as opposed to being some source of speculation. It was important because newsrooms are incredibly gossipy, and if all of a sudden they didn’t have that, they would have to move on. I also felt it was an important role to take on in the community, too, and the feedback I have gotten from people has been great. From a Q&A thing previously with the Voice, I got a lot of feedback from parents of gay kids who felt better about their kids or had worried. They see someone they recognize and a greater comfort level occurs, so it is important to take stands in the workplace.

DV: What’s it like being on the other side of the recording equipment? Have you learned anything working from the inside that would have changed any of your past stories?
CH: On the inside, all of a sudden I get the rest of the story, I get the lines and questions in my head, I get those answers filled. And many times it’s what I suspected. Many times I’ve been surprised, and not. That’s actually been the fun part of this job — filling in the blanks of what I thought I knew.

DV: Can you give us a little bit of a crash course? It is not unusual for a person with your credentials to end up in this position.
CH: I wasn’t brought in because I was gay; I was brought in for my history. Both my predecessors came out of media. Crayton Webb came to City Hall for Mayor [Laura] Miller. Frank Librio replaced him, and he was a producer at Channel 8 [WFAA]. So, there is kind of a history of that. For me, it’s been a really nice, big learning curve. A newsroom is always high pressure. People argue, you get used to getting in people’s faces. You just can’t do that at City Hall. It takes some getting used to.

DV: You don’t have a “gay” demeanor, but are there times in the office that a gay “affectation” occurs?
CH: During a committee meeting my phone went off with the “Sex and the City” ringtone. … Everyone’s eyes wandered over. It’s not a big secret over there, but it’s not a big issue.

DV: Did you mean to end up in this job?
CH: No, I didn’t. Someone from the mayor’s campaign contacted me a few months after the election and, if it had happened right after the election, I would have said no. I didn’t want a perception that I played favorites somehow. It would have raised a lot of questions in people’s minds. I went on and did other stories, and went to Europe for a few weeks. They came up to me and asked if I would be interested, I had never thought about it, but the more I did it sounded like a good thing. They found an outsider who knew the inside. I fit the bill.

DV: What were some of the factors that made you take the position?
CH: I covered City Hall for seven years. I had a good relationship with most everyone I covered in there. I cared about all the issues. Be it the Trinity, downtown development, the Inland Port, these are issues I’ve cared and written about for a long time, and this was a way to be engaged with the issues but in more of an advocacy role. I will say on most of those issues, I’ve always agreed with the mayor. In terms of my confidence, I don’t know that I was because when you ask past chiefs of staff, every one of them had different tasks.

DV: Did you ask any of them?
CH: Oh, yeah. No brochures, nothing. It’s all over the map. I’m sure I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way. But I realized, let’s just create this how you want it to be. The reality is this council operates differently than previous councils. It’s more peaceful.

DV: What kind of ideas have you been able to put forward to make change?
CH: A lot of it comes from history and previous experiences. ... Bringing added insight by filling in some of the holes, because I can say I was there when this issue blew up. I can add another level of understanding. A lot of what I do is consulting.

DV: Do you feel like you owe the LGBT community anything?
CH: I’d love to get smoking banned in the bars. This is a pretty progressive city, and the best way to keep that going is to help present diversity to the world in terms of the population, and communities with large gay and lesbian populations in fact do better in terms of economic growth and tourism. We want a community to feel safe and accepted and not worried about a kid beat up at school or gay-bashed for holding hands.

DV: What did you want to be when you grew up?
CH: I wanted to be a lot of different things. I wanted to be an architect, an actor and writer, but there were a whole bunch of things. Fortunately, journalism was something I was able to do and make an 18-year career out of and have fun doing it. But I would never run for office.

DV: Are you in love with what you’re doing?
CH: I don’t know if I’ve been doing it long enough to fall in love with it, but every day is new and interesting and a new challenge. Just when you think something has calmed, something else comes up and smacks you in the face.

DV: Do you ever take anything personally in this job?
CH: You can’t, even as a reporter. You treat people with respect. What you may disagree on with one issue, you may agree on with another.

DV: Do you want to retire?
CH: Probably not until I’m 70 or 80. Why? If we get to live to 100? I hadn’t given it much thought, because I love to work. But it is a challenge on your personal life.