By MICHAELANGELO SIGNORILE
“Out at The New York Times:
Gays, Lesbians, AIDS and
Homophobia Inside America’s
Newspaper of Record”
AP PHOTO/MARK LENNIHAN
is an article I
wrote for The Advocate 20 years ago, which began as an interview with a man who
chose to speak out. The New York Times’ assistant national editor Jeff Schmalz
bravely decided to tell me about being gay and about living with AIDS, recounting
a dramatic health event that occurred in the newsroom, which led to the revelation that he was gay and appeared to contribute to setting the paper of record on a
new course on gay rights. ¶ In 1992, no one as high-level as 38-year-old Schmalz,
who’d been at The Times for 20 years, had come out as gay at the paper, even privately, let alone come out as a person with AIDS. Such a revelation would certainly
get attention. But as it progressed the story snowballed into something much bigger: an admission that the paper had been negligent in its reporting on gays and
The New York Times headquarters on Eighth Avenue.
AIDS and may have hindered a social movement.
The curtain was pulled
back on a discreet and
powerful media organization, in a story that would
garner headlines from
other media, including
The Washington Post.
The new, young publisher of The Times, Arthur Suzlberger Jr., who
was a personal friend
of Schmalz’s and whose
family helmed The Times
for generations, had decided to give me an interview for the article,