HUFFINGTON
12.09.12
OUT AT THE TIMES
guess we all should have
done more.”
“The way The Times
worked under Rosenthal,” explains Kaiser,
“was that everyone below him spent all of
their time trying to figure out what to do to
cater to his prejudices.
One of those widely perceived prejudices was
Abe’s homophobia. So
editors throughout the
paper would keep stories concerning gays out
of the paper.”
As soon as Rosenthal retired in 1986 to
become a twice-weekly
op-ed columnist at the
paper and Max Frankel
took over as executive
editor, the walls of repression came tumbling
down, staffers say. “I
knew they had a hard
time,” recalls Frankel,
“and I knew they weren’t
comfortable identifying themselves as gay.”
Almost immediately
Frankel let it be known
that things were going
to be different. One way
was in quickly allowing
the use of the word gay
in the paper. A former
staffer recalls seeing a
memo that Frankel sent
to then publisher Punch
Sulzberger soon after
taking over: “Punch,
you’re going to have to
swallow hard on this
one: We’re going to start
using the word gay.”
Photographer Sara
Krulwich, a lesbian, says
Frankel was immediately
“a positive force” that
helped her and others to
relax. Agrees Schmalz:
“Things changed completely with Max.”
“Previously, everyone
was terrified,” notes
deputy photo editor
Nancy Lee, a lesbian.
“I was away when Max
took over. When I came
back the entire newsroom had changed.
There was a general
loosening up. The
next year I organized
a bunch of people for
the [gay pride] parade,
and we marched holding hands. We haven’t
marched since, but every year now we have a
party. Last year we had
about 60 people. I now
have pictures of my
partner under the glass
on my desk. Everyone
on my staff knows, and
I take Marie to any
Times function that she
cares to go to. I didn’t
do that under Abe.”
Lee, who has been
with the paper for 11
years, feels that her being out of the closet has
changed attitudes at
the paper. “On my staff,
which is photographers,
editors and lab personnel, I was the first person many of them ever
knew was a lesbian,” she
says. “I’m sure they were
grossed out at first. You
got the sense that they
disapproved. But because
they know me, they like
me, and so it helps them
to accept not just me but
other gay people and homosexuality in general.”
The combination of the
departure of Rosenthal,
the efforts by Frankel to