ELLEN B. NEIPRIS
When Arthur Sulzberger became publisher of The Times in 1992, he brought Adam Moss — the openly gay former editor of
the weekly 7 Days — in as a consultant regarding gay issues. Moss is currently the editor-in-chief of New York magazine.
he says of Kaiser. “He obviously fantasized about
The New York Times, and
he fantasized about my
attitude toward him. He
has a grievance against
this paper. It comes
from his inability to be
successful.”
In the mid ’80s, Times
reporter Richard Meislin, who had a plum spot
as the bureau chief in
Mexico City, got sick
while abroad. There was
speculation that it was
AIDS (it wasn’t). When
news of his illness got
back to Rosenthal — who
was then informed that
Meislin was gay — he
blew his stack. Staffers
say he chastised two editors for not telling him
previously that Meislin was a homosexual.
Rosenthal apparently
decided that Meislin, as
a homosexual, shouldn’t
represent The Times in
Mexico and eventually
pulled him back, though
Meislin was doing what
some editors considered
to be exemplary work.
Meislin was not assigned another foreign
post or sent to Washington, D.C., which would
be a usual next step. Instead, he was brought
back to the New York
newsroom to do a job he
hated. “What kept me
from leaving the paper,”
says Meislin, “was that
one of the [other] editors
took me in his office and