with YOU/Iq)Jg MICIAH CONNOllY PfRfIDIA DANCIN~! JOIN S~lI~A ~O·~OBOYS! & lARRY Tff . flVf flOORS Of nN- C[)OO/Ig (0peLt\ AND A ROOf! at 9 pWl Contents OUTTWEEK August 7, 1989
NEWS 10
HEALTH Political Science (Harrington) 26 Positive Alternatives (Lederer) 28
THE ARTS Film Do The Right Thing 48 Music The New Music Seminar 50 Theater The Lady In Question 52 LEMMETAKEVAPIC-CHA! April helps Erich Conrad chronicle the opening of Funk, Theater The Quintessential Image 54 Inc., the Outlaw Party and other hot spots. (Social Books The Pursuit Of Sodomy 55 Terrorism, page 44.)
DEPARTMENTS Outspoken (Editorial) 4 FEATURES Letters 6 Sotomayor 6 HOW GAY NEWSDAY? Nightmare of the Week 7 Chris Bull on the lesbian and gay newspaper Xeroxed 8 of record. page 32 Dykes To Watch Out For (Bechdel) 8 Out Of Control (Susie Day) 30 Out Of My Hands (Ball) 40 WHIRLING, FLYING, POUNDING Gossip Watch (SignOrile) 41 Charles Barber talks to dancer/choreogra- Look Out 42 pher Stephen Petronio about love, life and the Social Terrorism (Conrad) 44 new work. page 36 Community Directory 62 Personals 64 PEEK-A-BOO Going Out Calendar 68 Are you on the list? page 40 Best Bets 70 Sports (Hamlin) 74 WORD OF THE MINUTE Crossword 80 Get OVERit! (snap!) page 47 Hot Shot 82 AT LONG LAST...GESBIANS! Liz Tracey charts the phenomenon. page 46 ON THE COVER: ACT UP ACTING UP AT ARTHUR HOW TO GET LAID SULZBERGER'S HOME LAST WEEK .. Alison Camperwith lesbian sex tips. page 47 PHOTO BY T.l. UTI.
August 7,1989 OUT?WEEK 3 Outspoken Publisher The Times And Our Lives Associate Publisher Editor In Chief
Art Director
f all the organs of society that richly deserve blame for News Editor the tragedies of the AIDS era, perhaps none is as sur- ,fl,- prising or disappointing as The New York Times. This Features Editor "liberal" paper, onetime supporter of good causes and champion of enlightened public policy, has failed so conspicuously in enlightened AIDS reporting that it's already made journalistic history. For the critical first 19 months of the epidemic, while the num- ber of reported cases reached 958 and tens of thousands more became infected, the Times published a total of seven articles about AIDS. During the same period, the Tylenol tampering claimed seven lives and got 54 Times articles, many of them on the front page. Writers such as Larry Kramer and Randy Shilts have painstakingly traced the remarkable, homophobic decisions of the Times' editorial staff to ignore AIDS. Other historians are at work documenting this historic conspiracy. And no, conspiracy is not too strong a word. But what concerns us here, and what concerned the activists who led a raucous and daring anti- Times protest this week, are not the paper's past failings, but its present ones. Because the sins of The New York Times did not end when it belatedly discovered AIDS. Some may question why the policies of the New York Times are so important to our community. The answer is that the Times is the nation's most influential newspaper, the supreme journalistic court that legitimizes trends, events and people in our society. Presidents and senators, scientists and philanthropists, editors and opinion mak- ers all read it, and then often act on what they read. Sadly, if it isn't in the Times, then it isn't actually real to many in power. And what hasn't been in the Times for years now is good, in-depth, aggressive reporting about the decade's biggest health story. Once second to none in scientific reporting, it's now taken for granted in research and scientific circles that the Times' coverage of advances in AIDS research is sloppy, spotty and unreliable. The Times has no full-time AIDS reporter, and has no AIDS reporter at all in Washington, where public policy on AIDS is made every day. It ADVERTISING lags behind even a local tabloid such as Newsday, which sent five (212) 68S-Ul8 reporters to the Montreal AIDS conference (to the Times' one), or a FAX (212) 179-4452 financial paper such as The Wall Street Journal, which published Director IInales twice as many