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Gareth Fenley takes us on a stroll through the past year into a world
populated by publications who frequently portray gays and lesbians as bizarre and marginal
How Mainstream Media Looks at Us
Cher Heartbroken!
Daughter Announces She's Gay
The Star informed me of this last
December in the checkout line at Kroger.
Then a few weeks ago in a drugstore, the
Star grabbed me again, saying Chastity
Bono's lesbian lover has been cut off by
her parents “without a cent.” In case I was
wondering, it also provided a theoretical
discussion of how Chastity got that way,
complete with expert interviews. (It
could've been her domineering mother, or
maybe hormones.)
Ah, the life of a media watcher.
Publishers get our attention, or they go
out of business. News has to get a rise out
of us - even in the stodgy publications;
nobody expects a newspaper or magazine
to reflect un accurate, boring image of
daily life.
Unfortunately, millions of readers
depend on the straight press for informa
tion about our lives. What could they
have learned about us in 1989?
Glamour polled its readers and
announced that 50% say a doctor should
refuse artificial insemination to a lesbian.
Nynex Yellow Pages of New York
agreed to list gay services for the first
time, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Time magazine asked, “Is the Gay
Revolution a Flop?” My mother mailed
me that clipping with a handwritten note:
“I think this is true, though you probably
don't agree.” The magazine's editors had
pounced on After the Ball, apparently the
most “newsworthy” gay book of 1989, a
treatise by two guys who think our com
munity needs to clean up its image with
public relations. Do you think that if Cher
had seen ads promoting tolerance of
homosexuality in Time, she would've
taken Chastity's announcement in stride?
Even the best news sources in the
straight press tend to make us seem
bizarre and marginal, when they mention
us at all. You can picture the average
reader at Sunday breakfast: “What won't
those queers do next? Glad there aren't
any around here.” Here's the New York
Times headline for a story on Lesbian and
Gay Freedom Day, for example: “Half-
Million Commemorate a Police Raid on a
Gay Bar.”
Mainstream news coverage of our
lives isn't even a small piece of the pie -
it's a crumb. On the average, 0.8% of all
newspaper articles are about us. Yes, less
than 1%. San Francisco free-lance writer
Keith Clark calculated this figure by ana
lyzing twelve U.S. daily newspapers for
the first nine months of 1989.
Clark found that the two San
Francisco dailies printed the most gay
news: 861 articles in the Examiner
(including the award-winning “Gay in
America” series, which was reprinted in
Southern Voice), and 644 articles in the
Chronicle. The Atlanta Journal-
Constitution ran 287 articles, about the
same number as most other major papers.
That's about one article out of 170 pub
lished per day.
Death and the Next Struggle:
To Survive Gay Life
—New York Times, 6126189
No question about it, AIDS was the
top gay story of 1989 in the straight press.
“Even among the ‘better’ news sources,”
says Keith Clark, “80 to 90 percent of
everything published about us relates one
way or another to the AIDS epidemic.”
The relentless association of “gay” with
“AIDS” in the press should help us under
stand homophobes who declare, “Gay is
sad.”
Some AIDS coverage, though, has
brought insights about gay male life to an
audience that wouldn't otherwise read
about us. Reporters on the AIDS beat
have ventured into our community, many
for the first time. Again and again, they
find themselves awed by the compassion
and dignity of our response to the epidem
ic.
One of the most remarkable AIDS arti
cles ever published was a freestanding 16-
page special section in the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. “When AIDS
Comes Home: The Life and Death of Tom
Fox” (August 20, 1989) documented one
gay man's experience with AIDS. The
words and photographs also gave
glimpses of our community from the
inside: a party in Key West, Tom's support
group, a visit to the Quilt in Washington.
Powerful stuff.
Barney Frank's Public and Private
Lives: Lonely Struggle
for Coexistence
—New York Times, 9115/89
Front pages dripped with the scandal
that boiled over when a male prostitute
exposed his relationship with a gay
Congressman. The New York Times
devoted a full yard of column space to the
article with the headline I've quoted.
A pasty-faced portrait of Barney Frank
peered nervously from the cover of the
September 25 Newsweek. The photos in a
7-page special section were much more
flattering, and the story presented a mild
ly sympathetic perspective in scrutinizing
the difficulties of a publicly gay man.
Frank was able to explain himself directly
in an extensive, candid interview. After
reading it, I wrote to him, urging him to
hang in there. He sent me the following
letter.
September 29,1989
Dear Friend:
I wish I could be giving you a more
personal response to the generous mes
sage you sent, but then I've wished a cou
ple of other things these past couple of
weeks as well. One piece of good news
for me lately is the large number of peo
ple who were, like yourself, gracious
enough to send or phone me words of
encouragement, and the consequence of
that is that I cannot respond in a more
personalized way. I hope you understand
that I have read every message and I am
far more appreciative of your sending
yours than this note can convey.
Barney Frank
We all gnashed our teeth over this
scandal, wishing the damn thing would
go away; but apparently the press cover
age generated support as well as a torrent
of criticism. I hope the supporters prevail
in the elections this year.
Non-Nuclear Proliferation:
Alternative “Family” Arrangements
Grow More Common Across U.S.
—Utne Reader, March 1989
With an odd mixture of affection and
alarm, the press introduced mainstream
America to gay families in 1989.
A sprinkling of legal firsts marked the
year, providing news hooks for feature
stories. San Francisco's domestic partner-
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4/’Southern Voice • February 15,1990