ELLEN B. NEIPRIS
Nancy Lee was deputy photo editor when Max Frankel took control of the paper, a time when the atmosphere in the
newsroom became more open and accepting of gay and lesbian colleagues. “Previously, everyone was terrified,” she said.
legislature. The implication seems to be that
kissing between men
and woman, certainly
something The Times
has shown before, is OK,
while same-sex kissing is
in some way distasteful
or even prurient.
And coverage of the
AIDS crisis, while it
has improved substantially, has never been
up to its potential.
“The Times is slow on
AIDS,” observes Peter
Millones, a former metropolitan editor and former
assistant managing editor
at the paper, now an assistant professor at Columbia University School
of Journalism. “Back then
[in the beginning of the
epidemic], it didn’t click,
it didn’t register.”
Some even say that
the coverage of the AIDS
crisis, while it has improved somewhat from
six years ago, may have
actually declined again in
the last two years, par-
ticularly around the issues of drug treatment
and development. Two
years ago the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
(ACT UP), a direct-action
group, waged a campaign
against The Times and
later against one person
specifically: science reporter Gina Kolata. She
was charged with having
“an unquestioning acceptance of the Establishment point of view