Author/ activist Larry Kramer, according to the Times, has already referred to The New York Blade News as "gutless" while The Village Voice quotes Kramer saying the new Blade is "a timid piece of toilet paper that people can wrap their old fish in," and he accuses the Blade's publisher of being "in bed, so to speak, with someone whose work is really questionable." His reference is to the equalized heterosexual partners in the New York Blade News' advertising and distribution departments.

The editorial content of the new paper will remain within the exclusive domains of homosexually-inclined journalists.

Troy Masters, the publisher of LGNY, currently New York's only major gay paper, is also quoted by the Voice as being concerned about the Blade's agreement with News Communications Inc., the straight outfit. Like Kramer, he points to what a third critic calls the Blade's "mixed marriage," namely the partnership between a predominantly straight company and a gay one.

News Communications Inc. publishes 23 neighborhood papers in Gotham and will procure advertising for the Blade and perform other non-editorial duties. It will share 50-50 ownership in The New York Blade News. Many call the new newspaper an "invader" from Washington, D.C. It is in the nation's capital that the Washington Blade, the nation's oldest continuously published gay newspaper (since 1969) thrives and from where the invaders into LGNY "territory" originated.

From Washington, Blade publisher Don Michaels responded with seeming bemusement according to Voice writer Richard Goldstein, to Manhattanite Kramer's comments, saying, "If he (Kramer) called to beat up on me about partnering with a straight outfit, I'd have to ask him why he turned to Barbara Streisand to finance The Normal Heart." (Ed. Note: title of Kramer's play.)

LGNY, which the Times says is under 3 years old, is a biweekly. It identifies itself with what it considers the cutting edge of New York thought, and fears that advertising and reader loyalties will be needlessly diverted to conservative or right wing political venues in New York and Washington, D.C..

According to LeRoy Aarons, founder of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, the debate is really between advocacy journalism (LGNY) and what is reputed to be objective reporting (New York Blade News) and it is one that has plagued the gay press since its inception. Manhattan has long been responsive to a subjective-style of reporting.

Manhattan's GAY , America's first weekly newspaper (straight & gay co-owned but solely gay edited-- between 1969-1973) practiced editorially what author John Paul Hudson called personal journalism, trusting individual reporters to be fair in their news accounts without their feeling obliged to hide a personal view.

GAY's news stories often became accounts of a reporter's rolicking adventures, serving at the same time as advocacy appeals for liberation. GAY's 1969 editors argued that "objectivity" causes bland and hypocritical poses, since newspaper editors are among the most deliberately focused of opinion-molders.

The Washington Blade's "objective" approach, even so, has earned it arguable respect as the nation's most professional looking gay and lesbian newspaper, and its sibling New York paper, scheduled to hit Big Apple streets October 23, will likely emulate the Washington paper's philosophy.

In the meantime, LGNY advertises itself as "gay owned."

OUT magazine editor, Sarah Pettit is reported saying sexual orientation doesn't matter because there's little or no difference between straight and gay money if they're both spent doing the same job. Straight partnership, she argues, may be a sign of progress.

LGNY, however, is concerned not only about its place after working hard three years to achieve its present status, but about the political approaches of Blade's straight-half-owner. Its notes that the 23 papers it publishes generally agree on political endorsements. Further, one of its papers, which serves the Borough of Queens, has as its editor a person who is said to be "no friend to gays."