HUFFINGTON
12.09.12
OUT AT THE TIMES
ing a gay date along for
evenings out with the
couple or spending much
time at their home.
Quindlen, another
close friend of Schmalz’s,
noticed the impact his
getting sick had at the
paper. “People were really affected by it,” she
says. “This is probably
the most vivid case of
someone at The Times
having AIDS. A lot of us
knew Larry Josephs, but
with Jeff actually being
here, well, he’s just so
much a part of the place.”
“I think things were
already changing, but
my illness couldn’t do
anything but make them
more aware of AIDS,”
Schmalz says. He now
also sees his homosexuality from a different
perspective. “I regret
that I wasn’t more out
all along,” he adds. “I
regret that I didn’t do
more talking about being
gay, overall. It’s important for people to know
that the deputy national
editor of The New York
Times can be gay — people both on the outside
and at the paper.”
Frankel shrugs off the
notion that the awareness of Schmalz’s illness might have influenced coverage. “I can’t
say that I’ve noticed a
change,” he says. “It’s
hard to measure change.
It’s evolutionary.”
But one Times staffer,
who wishes to remain
anonymous, is adamant
about the significance of
Schmalz’s experience:
“There have always
been gay people here at
the Times, and I’m sure
that Frankel and Lelyveld have always known
gay people, but there’s
never been anyone that
high up, that close to
them in the newsroom,
who is so so well-liked.
His coming out has had
a profound effect.”
OF COURSE, ONE MAN’S
PROFOUND IS ANOTHER’S
INCREMENTAL.
“I’ve noticed an improvement,” says Robert Bray,
communications director of the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force, a political group. “But it’s episodic. I don’t want any more articles about gays
specifically. I’d rather see our visibility permeate
the paper at all levels. I want to see the gay rodeo
on the sports pages. I want to see gays included in
the stories about Valentine’s Day.”
If the Lavender Enlightenment is underway in the
Manhattan newsroom, it has yet to reach the foreign
bureaus or even the Washington and Los Angeles
bureaus. GLAAD’s Miller, who has met with Times
management on several occasions, says that the organization “praises The Times for the progress” but
still has problems with much of the coverage.