March 5, 2016
Gay Reporter Ushered in Change at the New York Times
Brian Bromberger READ TIME: 5 MIN.
When someone reads the New York Times today, they can see same-sex wedding announcements, editorials in favor of marriage equality, and in-depth coverage of LGBTQ issues. But it didn't always used to be like that.
The seismic changes are relatively recent and due largely to the groundbreaking work of reporter Jeff Schmalz, who died of AIDS-related complications in November 1993 at the age of 39. In a new book, Dying Words: The AIDS Reporting of Jeff Schmalz And How It Transformed The New York Times (CUNY Journalism Press), Samuel G. Freedman and co-author Kerry Donahue confirm Schmalz's profound effect on American print media.
Freedman, 60, was in the Bay Area last week, where he spoke at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
It may seem strange that the Times , long known for being liberal on so many social issues, up until the last 20 years failed to embrace both AIDS and LGBTQ topics. The Times didn't even allow the use of the word "gay" until 1987, preferring the pejorative "homosexual."
In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter , Freedman, a professor at Columbia University and the On Religion columnist for the Times, noted that "in liberal circles, prejudice against LGBTQ people was acceptable, that anti-gay jokes and stories featuring mincing stereotypes were OK, where an anti-black or anti-woman comment would not be tolerated, but specifically at the Times, you had an executive editor named Abe Rosenthal and a publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Sr., who discriminated against gays, promoting a homophobic atmosphere there. This attitude was typical in most newsrooms, but more damaging at the Times because of its huge footprint as the paper of record."
Schmalz, who grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, knew he was gay and wanted to be a journalist. Attending Columbia University, audaciously he wrote a letter to the Times saying that he was incredibly talented and that the paper should hire him, which it did. A rising star, he kept his gay identity hidden from his superiors to protect his career. He became the consummate dapperly dressed - complete with requisite bow tie - Times newspaperman, respected and feared for his editorial expertise and tough standards as well as his snarky, withering wit. Despite being the regional metropolitan editor, he didn't openly push coverage of gay subjects or AIDS, because he didn't want to draw attention to his own closeted sexual orientation.
But everything changed on December 21, 1990, when Schmalz collapsed with a seizure in the newsroom due to progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, or PML, a progressive brain infection. Shortly afterward he was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS.
"Jeff was my rabbi and mentor who watched out for me, as well as the first gay person I ever knew, and he played favorites, luckily for me," observed Freedman, a straight man. "But I did notice that the closet made Jeff bitter and once the closet doors were blasted away, not only could he openly report on the disease that was killing him and others, but he could give greater vent to his kindness and compassion more broadly."
AIDS Beat ProposedM/slug>
After seven months away from the newsroom, having survived pneumonia and brain surgery, Schmalz proposed an AIDS beat where he would cover the disease not from a medical, political, or public policy perspective, but as a human interest story. With the more enlightened and open environment promoted by executive editor Max Frankel and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Schmalz wrote long, in-depth profiles of people living with AIDS, including Larry Kramer; Magic Johnson; Mary Fisher; and Randy Shilts, who both at KQED and the San Francisco Chronicle preceded Schmalz on AIDS coverage.
He also wrote first person articles ("Covering AIDS and Living It: A Reporter's Testimony"), a rarity then at the paper. His work set the standard for newsrooms throughout the country, with every major newspaper soon covering the AIDS beat.
Schmalz's personal essays brought him unexpected, unsought celebrity as he was featured in TV shows, magazines, speeches, and photo shoots. It was a spotlight that while violating his "longtime ethos of the story being paramount over the reporter, still allowed him to promote AIDS awareness and fuller acceptance of LGBTQ people," Freedman said.
Stylistically, Schmalz pushed the limits of the third person point of view perspective, promoting a more literary or creative nonfiction-memoir approach so popular today. Freedman said that when Schmalz interviewed a PWA, he would tell them that he had the disease as well, both "in the hope the camaraderie would open them up, but also to let them know that someone with full-blown AIDS could carry on as a full-time reporter."
Internally at the Times Schmalz became "a change agent by promoting a sense of inclusion and affirming an LGBTQ-friendly editorial policy and personnel decisions," Freedman said. "Because Jeff was the quintessential Times man, when he got sick, anyone in the newsroom who was on the fence, had an '-ick' factor, or was privately homophobic, could no longer stand those attitudes anymore because Jeff was so admired and beloved. It was as if the whole paper got AIDS. His fight for life and indomitable will to keep working, daily on public display, put AIDS and gay issues front and center."
Schmalz's last article, "Whatever Happened to AIDS," about the disease falling off the front page, published three weeks after he died, was finished by two gay reporters Schmalz had mentored, Adam Moss and Adam Nagourney. Schmalz had deep remorse about his early lack of coverage of AIDS and gay topics, "chastising himself as a coward, wanting to use whatever time he had left to make up for this lack," said Freedman. ACT UP had previously been critical of Schmalz and the Times . Schmalz struggled to negotiate the tough line between being objective in his reporting and playing an activist role.
"In time, he came to feel that there was a dialectic between these two poles that contributed to the best work he could do," said Freedman.
Freedman said that he was shocked to realize that Schmalz's contributions were largely forgotten outside the Times , so he decided to rectify that situation by writing the book, "to make his work more permanent and get it into the canon by fitting it into his life and times, because newspaper articles start turning yellow the next day, with links buried five minutes after you read them."
Today, Freedman said, one can look at the Times and see an openly LGBTQ person listed as an executive editor (Nancy Lee) and read a gay op-ed columnist (Frank Bruni), which would have been unthinkable 25 years ago, but, he added, it was because of the courageous trailblazing path set by Schmalz.
An accompanying radio documentary featuring interviews with leading journalists can be downloaded for free at the book's website, www.dyingwordsproject.com
