MIAMI BEACH, Fla.—Gay adult performer-director Collin O’Neal is no stranger to the breaking-news biz. Under his real name, Shawn Loftis, in November 2008 he debuted on iReport.com—cable news network CNN’s citizen-journalism effort—with a video report about French reaction to the election of U.S. President Barack Obama. Since then, he has posted six additional reports to the website.
“I was approved by CNN a while back as an iReporter, so whenever I report on something significant, a CNN producer calls me up to move forward on the vetting process,” he told AVN.com.
Late last week, another Loftis-lensed report appeared on the site, to the delight of web wonks at Gawker.com, GayPornBlog.com and Advocate.com, who evidently missed last year’s Loftis debut reel. In the new video, Loftis-O’Neal covered severe flooding in south Florida. The experience affected him in ways wholly unrelated to his videography, he said.
“That evening, two women who abandoned their vehicles looking for shelter knocked on the door asking for help, and we let them in,” he said. “At 8:30 a.m. [the next] morning, a producer from CNN kept calling and calling until I finally answered, and she asked for my approval to post the story on CNN’s website.”
As a “vetted” report, Loftis’ video was featured on the main CNN site and within 24 hours garnered 55,000 views and several comments. One of the comments named names, and Loftis was unmasked as a gay porn star.
He remains unconcerned about that.
“In this day and age the media does not care,” he said. “Porn workers are no longer a scourge, but rather a curiosity to the general public. Hell, if Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian can release sex tapes, why should gay porn be singled out as a taboo?”
As for other media outlets, he said he was “struck” by the way in which many gave kudos to CNN for running the report despite its origin in the hands of a gay porn insider.
Gawker’s wry comment bears repeating in that regard: “Congratulations, CNN, you now have a gay porn star among your ranks, and we couldn’t be happier,” Gawker’s Brian Moylan wrote. “Somehow O’Neal manages to look less gay talking about the weather in a soaking wet wife-beater than Anderson Cooper does in a parka reporting live from a hurricane.”
O’Neal is the co-founder of the World of Men studio, which specializes in pro-am gay XXX content featuring international men in exotic locations.
