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Repents its Gay Coverage Meeting Shows a Promising New Start say Activists |
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Compiled By GayToday
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-Turning disagreements into promises of future coverage that presents a fairer picture of South Florida's lesbian and gay community, officials of the city's newspaper, the Sun-Sentinel met with Representatives of Gays United to Attack Repression and Discrimination (GUARD) and other community groups.
On their meeting agenda was the newspaper's coverage of gay issues and events. J. Anthony "Tony" Ramos, President of GUARD, called for the meeting at the request of Out & About TV which, like GUARD's membership and the inhabitants of South Florida's gay communities, found the Sun-Sentinel's coverage of the city's recent PrideFest unacceptable. Out & About had originally called for a lesbian and gay boycott of the newspaper but agreed to join GUARD to iron out differences in the newspaper's lair. The Sun Sentinel's Conference Room served to house the meeting which included an impressive array of activist and business notables from Ft. Lauderdale's thriving gay and lesbian community.
The Sun-Sentinel was represented by Vice President and Editor Earl Maucker; Managing EditorEllen Soeteber; Readers Managing Editor Gail Bulfin; Education Editor Fran Jeffries; Assistant Managing Editor Kathy Trumbull; Assistant Managing Editor for Photos and Graphics John Hall; Editor Mindy Donnelly; Staff Writer Jody Benjamin and other staff members. Mr. Ramos chaired the meeting. Both sides agreed that the meeting went smoothly and helped improved relations between the Sun-Sentinel and Broward's lesbian and gay community. Rev. Ford, Clark, Cimoch and other community representatives expressed candid opinions of the paper and of its coverage of the lesbian and gay communities. In turn, Editor Maucker apologized for the PrideFest coverage, a sole photo of three drag queens, admitting it to be poor judgment on the paper's part. A column by Mr. Maucker, which will be published in the February 28, issue of his paper, will attempt to clear the air on this and other issues. Representatives of the Sun-Sentinel agreed to meet with community representatives, and conduct a workshop on getting out the news at the next meeting of the lesbian and gay Alliance. Mr. Maucker turned down a proposal to establish a lesbian and gay community liaison, noting that in the Sun-Sentinel "we don't have an ombudsman because all of our editors are ombudsmen." But he invited GUARD to give input on sensitivity training to the paper's Human Resources Department.
Maucker also promised that gay and lesbian couples will be allowed to buy space in the "Lifestyle" section to advertise their domestic partnerships. Vowing that "We mean business,"
representatives of the Sun-Sentinel vowed to provide the Broward County
communities with more extensive and balanced coverage of lesbian, gay and
AIDS issues.
As President of GUARD, Ramos was happy with the results of the meeting. "I think the meeting went really well. After the meeting Earl Maucker came up to me and said that there are other issues that he'd like to talk about, so I think we made a big impact on the Editors that were there." Because the meeting went so well, GUARD has turned down the idea of a boycott of the newspaper, and will ask other community organizations to refrain from boyvotting. However, Ramos adds, "we will continue to monitor the paper and it's efforts to evenly cover Gay and Lesbian issues, and the printing of domestic partnerships. We made Mr. Maucker aware of the fact that we read the paper page by page and he asked that I call him or Gail Bulfin personally with any issues that we have. I also plan to get together with Gail Bulfin and Mindy Donnelly to set up a contact list within the next few days." |
