HUFFINGTON
12.09.12
OUT AT THE TIMES
ner. Later, a couple of
the gay individuals who
had been present privately told Gwertzman
what they thought of his
comment. But more significant, in what some
say was a first, Frankel
and Lelyveld took Gwertzman to task, letting
him know that from
then on gay slurs would
not be tolerated at The
New York Times. “They
came down on him hard
— tore him out a new
asshole,” quips Times
deputy news editor Russell King, who is gay.
Several months later,
Philip Gefter, who’d just
been hired as a Times
picture editor, was sitting
at the picture desk when
he overheard a straight
male editor retelling an
event to a group of people. In his account, the
male editor said the word
“fruits” to describe gay
men. A straight female
editor who was present became incensed.
She told the male editor
his words were hurtful.
Gefter, empowered by the
woman, reeled around,
looked the male editor in
he face, and said, ‘’Yeah.
You never know when
there might be a gay person around.” The male
editor mumbled an apology and loped off.
In January, two weeks
after becoming the new
Times publisher, Arthur
Ochs Sulzberger Jr. held
a meeting with the editorial staff in the newsroom. It was a new year
and a new Times. He told
the staff that from then
on “diversity” would be
a priority at the paper,
and eventually he blurted out the phrase “sexual orientation.”
“We almost fell off
our chairs,” recalls photographer Sara Krulwich, a lesbian who’s
been with The Times
for 13 years. “It was the
first time any top executive at The Times had
ever used those words.”
And just a few weeks
ago, in an unprecedented appearance, Lely-
veld spoke to the newly
formed National Gay and
Lesbian Journalists Association at New York’s
Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center.
He gave several reasons
for appearing before the
crowd of 250, including
his desire “to show solidarity with my gay colleagues at The Times.”
While what some have
dubbed the Lavender Enlightenment was occurring behind the scenes at
The Times in the last year
or so, it seemed like all
manner of gay and lesbian
news was suddenly fit to
print on the paper’s pages
as well. There were stories about suburban gays,
Jewish gays in search of
a rabbi, powerful lesbians in the gay and lesbian
civil rights movement, the
paucity of gay and lesbian
characters on television
and even a travel piece —
with recommendations
from a New York hotel
concierge — on things for
gay couples from Los Angeles to do while visiting