[Photocopy of the Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 1982] Page: 9 of 20
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"",..On the march: The National March on Washington for Lesbian
and Gay Rights, held on October 14, 1979, was designed to
call attention to the need for national legislation ensuring equal
rights for gays. The three networks and most major papers
covered the event, Time and Newsweek ignored it'
was just a year after Stonewall and 1, for the first time,
spoke up and said, 'Damn it, I'm a homosexual!' " Miller
was promptly invited to write the Magazine piece, which
drew more than 2,000 letters, mostly favorable.Does the Times know its own mind?
But if in the past the Times boldly tackled a subject most
mainstream publications wouldn't touch, in recent years the
paper's coverage of gay-related subjects has often seemed
timorous, shallow, and hypocritical.
Former Times columnist Roger Wilkins - he left the
paper in 1979 and is now a commentator on CBS Radio's
Spectrum" program - recalls: "I had a clear sense that
[homosexuality] was not a subject which was welcomed at
the paper. It was generally known." The first black to be
appointed to the Times's editorial board, Wilkins says that
during his two years as the paper's urban affairs writer only
three of his columns were killed - and two of them were on
gay topics. The spiking of a 1978 piece he wrote on the
gay-rights bill then coming up before the city council par-
ticularly rankled him. "I understood that six hundred
thousand to one million gay people live in New York City,"
says Wilkins, "and their impact on the city is just enor-
mous. I was able to talk to people in the closet who told me
how the bill would affect their lives."
Wilkins says he was told by then-assistant metro editor
Jonathan Friendly that deputy managing editor Arthur Gelb
spiked the column "because it wasn't urban affairs."
Friendly, now media reporter for the Times, says he does
not recall the incident, adding that his understanding was
that the urban affairs column, then as now, was restricted to
reporting on two constituencies, "the poor and minorities
- ethnic minorities." Wilkins disputes this, saying, "The
urban affairs column dealt with everything urban."
Grace Lichtenstein, a general assignment reporter at the
Times from 1970 to 1978, comments in a vein somewhat
similar to Wilkins's: "I wanted to do more stories on the
topic than they wanted. They usually thought one general
story [on gays] would do for a year or so. I asked if I could
develop gay affairs and women's affairs as a beat on the
metropolitan desk, and the request was turned down."
The Times can also be fairly charged with failing to prac-
tice what it preaches. Its editorial stance on a bill prohibiting
discrimination against gays that-has repeatedly failed to pass
in the city council has been eloquent: ". . . the city itself is
diminished by the manner of the measure's rejection. The
bill's intent was merely to guarantee the right not to be dis-
criminated against" (May 25, 1974); ". . . We hope that
this time around the bill passes and New Yorkers affirm
their belief in equitable treatment for a long-abused minor-
ity" (May 3, 1978). But time and again - in 1975, 1978,
and 1981 - in contract negotiations with The Newspaper
Guild, the Times has rejected demands that the paper should
accept a nondiscrimination clause protecting gays.
While, at lea. t on its editorial page, the Times regards
gays as a minority, editors at other papers hold conflicting
views on this basic issue. Peter Weitzel, deputy managing
editor at The Miami Herald, says, for example: "My paper
doesn't make any effort to cover gays as a specific commu-28
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW
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Pierson, Ransdell. [Photocopy of the Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 1982], text, 1982-03/1982-04; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1954946/m1/9/?rotate=90: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.