 |
|
|
Compiled By GayToday
In the midst of incendiary exchanges between Larry Kramer, New York activist and author, and Walter Isaacson, Time's managing editor, yet a third observer, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter and Advocate contributor, Steve Friess, independently raised what he felt were troubling issues about Time in a letter to international correspondent, Rex Wockner.
Friess said: "I've been away for a while, was wondering if anyone's taken note of the fact that Time's year-end issue had virtually nothing about Matthew Shepard or any other gay story in there. "The stunning thing is that there is an itty-bitty blurb on page 18 (nestled in the letters pages, pages are actually unnumerated) noting that Shepard got the most votes for a reader poll of Time "Man of the Year", with an asterick caveat that he couldn't have gotten it anyway because they don't pick dead people. (inanimate objects like the Earth and the computer, perhaps, but not a martyr.) "That graphic was weird, too, because it said Shepard got 130 votes, which seems low for any poll Time would do, and didn't indicate who was voting. We all know Shepard got thousands of votes on the website poll.
"That, apparently, is all we did in 1998." Larry Kramer Vs. TIME The day before the Fliess'letter was received by Wockner, Larry Kramer's December 22 letter to Walter Isaacson, chided Time's managing editor over the same issues: "Once again—don't you ever learn that we exist? Or when will you acknowledge that we exist? Once again an entire "history" issue arrives that ignores the fact that during this same year millions and millions of gay men and lesbians live in the exact same world as all the heterosexuals Time Magazine writes about. "No acknowledgment of what has happened to us last year. No Matthew Shepard. No Hawaii. No Vermont. No Ellen. Nothing, but nothing about AIDS. Two dozen new drugs reducing deaths here while Africa self-destructs. For you and yours, we don't exist. We don't contribute to the arts, to literature, to theater, to business, to movies. There are no photos of us. Matthew Shepard nailed to a cross does not qualify for "Images 98." "Our news is simply not your news. You ostracize us utterly. Honestly, Walter, your magazine is wretchedly biased and unfair. There is no excuse for this to happen yet again, after we caught you the last time you put out one of these "commemorative" jobs. I am seriously considering passing the word around for a gay and lesbian boycott of your magazine. Time is really not worth reading, for a gay or lesbian. Or advertising in. How would you like it if you were treated like this? TIME's Managing Editor Responds to Kramer: On December 23, Time's managing editor,Walter Isaacson, responded to Larry Kramer: "This is bullshit. We were the only magazine to do a cover on Mathew Shepard and the Hawaii gay marriage initiative. We put his picture and the fence where he was crucified on the cover. Did anyone else have that picture on the cover this year? "We are also planning more on this issue. And we made David Ho Man of the Year two years ago. This year the story was the Clinton scandal. But we have covered AIDS, gay bashing, gay rights and other such issues more than anyone in the newsmagazine field and more than most of the mainstream press. "And Mathew Shepard and his picture are on the first page of our Year in Review news quiz. And in Rosenblatt's year-end essay. Lacayo in his attack on conservative invasion of privacy raises the Hardwick case. It is horribly unfair to say we "ostracize" you. That's like accusing me of racism or anti- Semitism. It's damn unfair." Kramer Responds to Managing Editor at TIME: Kramer refused to be calmed by TIME's reply. He wrote again to Isaacson: "Yes you did all the things you said you did. How can I explain that it's not the quantity it's the attitude, it's the voice, it's the quality, it's the continuity? We are not something you drop in and drop out of, like a wake. We are here all the time. We are the same as you. We are not something you cover like you write about some foreign tribe. "It is wrong to try and make people feel grateful for appearing in your pages a few times when they should be appearing in your pages all the time because we are living all the time and there are more gays in the world than there are Jews and almost as many gays as there are blacks. "There are Jews in your magazine every week and there are blacks in your magazine very week. And until we get that kind of parity, yes, we are ostracized and yes, I accuse you of being anti-gay. "There are gay stories and gays appearing in the New York Times every week. We are included in stories about issues like insurance and adoption that include everyone. There are even pictures of us doing things like renting apartments and shopping. There are AIDS stories of unbelievable excellence in the New York Times every week. (I find it ironic that I, of all people, should be saying this, but some publications have come further than others.) The Times reviews our plays and our performers and our movies. They hire openly gay people to write about us. "No, you cannot do an end of the year issue and isolate us out and use as an excuse that we appeared in earlier issues. "I understand from Andrew Sullivan that you have hired an openly gay writer, John Cloud, and I hope he will have as much of a chance to write as much and as openly as straight journalists. Will he be allowed essays like Rosenblatt and other straights? "To discuss your items a little more specifically, I think it can be safely said that putting David Ho on your cover was not a good idea. Or rather it wasn't a bad idea, but trumpeting the end of AIDS and saying he had the secret of life were not good ideas. "That cover has become a bit of a laughing stock. And it certainly did not help David's career one bit. Your coverage of gay bashing/rights/etc is so loaded with reactions from "the other side" that we wind up sounding like freaks. "I don't know why it is that whenever anything about homosexuals is written it is felt essential to get responses from the worst of our enemies, like Lou Sheldon, Gary Bauer, as if these represent the "mainstream." Your (and Newsweek's) articles about "the gay community" are often so far off the mark that I don't recognize what you are talking about. "Do you know what a lesbian is? Your magazine certainly doesn't. There are other lesbians in the world beside Ellen, Anne, and Lea. They live very productive and complicated lives and I daresay there is a quiet revolution going on right now about how lesbians live. Remember, whatever number of gay people there are, half of them are women. They have other issues than men. Just like straight women have other issues than straight men. "So yes you have written about us but after reading what you have written I cannot say that I feel great that you have written about us. Do you understand what I am saying? " I do not want to appear in your magazine only after one of us has been crucified on a cross. I would like us to appear in your magazine before that. Your news does not come out to be our news. It comes out to be the news as written by the straight white man boss. "Happy New Year, and may you and yours do better. "Larry" |
