Guilt at The New York Times Magazine

By Jack Nichols

ast Tuesday I published a GayToday world news feature that was headlined: "New York Times Magazine Prints Blatant Falsehoods". The New York Times Magazine Sunday cover story—titled "An Inconvenient Woman" discussed the transgendered girlfriend of slain soldier Barry Winchell and might have been worthy of praise except for one factor: the magazine has apparently slammed and distorted the role of the Service member’s Legal Defense Network (SLDN).

Considering how important the SLDN has been in assisting gays in the military, I decided, the Times magazine’s attack on the group required a closer examination. It now Seems there’s ample evidence that the Times magazine is guilty of having deliberately misrepresented the SLDN.

The "inconvenient woman", Calpernia Adams, for example, issued statements and letters insisting that she did not say what The New York Times Magazine article claims she did. SLDN has also complained of numerous errors in the article which begins:
"In order to turn the murdered soldier Barry Winchell into a martyr for gay rights, activists first had to turn his girlfriend, Calpernia Addams, back into a man."

Following the GayToday publication of Calpernia Addams’ (and others’) letters the author of the Times article, David France, dashed off an e-mail to GayToday asking about the origins of my opinion of the offending piece which had been quoted therein.

He took the whole matter quite personally, beginning with my quotation to which he’d most objected:
"This article, according to GayToday's Senior Editor Jack Nichols, is a
deliberate attempt to trash important movement organizations doing their best to eliminate 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' inequities?"

Mr. France then asked: " ‘Deliberate attempt to trash?’ What makes him know this with such certitude?"

I dashed off a speedy reply:
"Dear Mr. France, Unless one is unconscious while writing--it becomes, in fact, a deliberate act. Or did you fail to weigh the consequences of what you were writing?"

David France then responded to GayToday with a barrage of questions, unaware that they were being received directly by me. These questions, appearing below, are interspersed with my replies.

David France: Why the snotty reply?
Jack Nichols: There was no attempt to be snotty. Just brief. You were brief too.
David France: Sharpen your reasoning skills.
Jack Nichols: Please do suggest some sure-fire Socratic method.
David France: It is easy to write sentences.
Jack Nichols: Your article seems to have made a number of people --people quoted in it and the SLDN folks--think so too.
David France: I was asking you what reasoning went into your sentences.
Jack Nichols: What you are now calling SLDN "press releases" sent to oppose your article were, in fact, statements from several affected people who said that the article contained blatant and harmful falsehoods…things they didn’t say to you during your interviews with them.
David France: I asked how you know what you are asserting, with such pure authority.
Jack Nichols: And I asked if you’d pondered the consequences of what you’d written before writing it? And I replied that writing is, unless accomplished while one is asleep, a deliberate act…my reply to your original question or how did I know that the article’s consequence—trashing the SLDN--was a deliberate act.
David France: I'll try again:
Jack Nichols: Okay.
David France: Your editor alleges to know that what I wrote was false. How does he know that?
Jack Nichols: The people written about published their statements saying so.
David France: Could he be wrong?
Jack Nichols: If the people quoted in the GayToday article are liars.
David France: Could I be right?
Jack Nichols: If the people quoted in the GayToday article are liars.
David France: What is his (the editor’s) evidence either way?
Jack Nichols: You asked that already, didn’t you?
David France: Does he (Jack Nichols) consider himself a journalist (I confess, I do not know his name)? Does he do reporting himself? Because ordinarily when one weighs into a dispute, one contacts the disputing parties as a way to make up his mind.
Jack Nichols: He does consider himself an alternative press journalist, yes. The contents and the slant of the offensive article as well as the hurt reactions of those purportedly quoted seemed quite sufficient inasmuch as The New York Times Magazine isn’t easy to reach either by phone or by email. And who but Allah knows where David France lives
David France: I have not heard from him. (Jack Nichols) I'm confident had he talked to me he would not have used the language he did to trumpet my Times article.
Jack Nichols: Maybe yes, maybe no. Now that he knows where you can be reached, you may be sure he’d gladly print your objections to all of the article’s accusers.
David France: Your editor further believes I knew it was false.
Jack Nichols: Now, here you are dead wrong. The reference in GayToday is to the offending article, not to you. Editorial departments in magazines are notorious for changing wordage. You will notice that GayToday’s ire is aimed primarily at The New York Times Magazine’s editorial department.
David France: How does he know that? Where is his reporting?
Jack Nichols: He (that’s me, David) was giving his opinion, based on your interviewees statements and on the magazine’s questionable past behavior. He was not reporting.
David France: Your editor further says I reported this falsehood
anyway--"deliberately"--knowing that it was false. Again, how does he know that?
Jack Nichols: It says, I repeat, "the article" reported the falsehoods deliberately. No knowledge can be total or, as they say, completely objective. But GayToday’s editor more trusts the people interviewed in the article as opposed to the editorial department of the Times’ magazine. Again, its nothing personal with respect to you.
David France: Or does he know that at all? Would he be surprised if I disagreed?
Jack Nichols: He would be astonished if you didn’t disagree. But not surprised. Most people use this word ineptly. If my lover caught me in bed with another person, I would be surprised but my lover would be astonished.
David France: Your editor further says I did it to "trash" the organization.
Jack Nichols: The article trashed the organization. GayToday’s editor thought so before he ever saw communications from the organization or from those who were quoted in the article
David France: How does he know that? Where does he get the evidence of my motive?
Jack Nichols: The article’s motive, not yours. The magazine’s motive, not yours.
You may, in fact, be an honest writer. But unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the article that’s attributed to you.
David France: Does he know if I am sympathetic or not to SLDN's goals? Does he know whether or not I've given SLDN money as a private citizen? Does he know if I've written about them in the past, or otherwise opined about their work?
Jack Nichols: His only source is what you have said in one of the nation’s most prestigious magazines, and he sees no reason to ask for money receipts to prove past contributions. The effect of the said article was, in fact, to trash the organization, whether deliberate or unconscious. The GayToday paragraph that you objected to and which you quoted clearly begins with the words "The article…" and not with "David France"
David France: I wrote my piece based on reporting, and know it to be true without reservation
-- notwithstanding the press release from SLDN and the semantic denials of the individuals involved, written under duress (I say they made a "proposal" about attaching male pronouns to Addams; they say they hadn't "advised, suggested, or otherwise recommended" it).
Jack Nichols: GayToday would gladly do a news article and give you space therein to reply to your detractors. Or, we will gladly print (in our next Pen Points feature) any letter from you outlining why you think your detractors—especially those you quoted—are wrong.
David France: What sort of reporting has your editor done?
Jack Nichols: Look up his indexed name in the history of the gay press titled ‘Unspeakable’ by Dr. Rodger Streitmatter. What are some of your credentials as a writer? Following are a few more of my own references:
The Gay Militants, by Donn Teal, Simon & Schuster, 1971 (paperback-St.
Martin's Press, 1995)
The Gay Crusaders, by Kay Tobin & Randy Wicker, Paperback Library, 1972
(Chapter 10)
The Gay Insider USA, by John Francis Hunter, Stonehill, 1972 (Chapter 34)
Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities, by John D'Emilio, University of Chicago
Press, 1983
Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay & Lesbian Movement, Edited by Mark Thompson, 1994 Introduction to 1972-pages 65-66
Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay & Lesbian Press in America, by Rodger StreitmatterFaber and Faber, 1995
Straight News: Gays, Lesbians and the News Media, by Edward Alwood, Columbia University Press, 1996
Lonely Hunters: An Oral History of Lesbian & Gay Southern Life, by James T. Sears, Westview-Harper Collins, 1997 (Chapters 6 & 7)
The Gay Metropolis 1940-1996, by Charles Kaiser, Houghton-Miflin, 1997
The Other Side of Silence: Men's Lives & Gay Identities-A Twentieth Century History, by John Loughery, Henry Holt, 1998
Witness to Revolution: The Advocate Reports on Gay & Lesbian Politics
1967-1999 Edited by Chris Bull pages 15-17

David France: Calpernia Addams's story tells us a lot about what we don't know: about gender, about politics, about love. There are undoubtedly errors in this story; the practice of reporting is imprecise.
Jack Nichols: I certainly agree with your last statement, that there are errors and that reporting is imprecise. And about gender? Its an important topic, no doubt. I wrote my major work examining gender and saw it published in 1975 by Penguin Books. My second great love, incidentally, was, like Calpernia, a successful drag entertainer.
David France: But the passage that SLDN focuses on is not printed in error, as each party to it attests. Rather, it is protested in error by a group that that now appears morbidly afraid of learning a lesson from a mistake, and letting others learn along with them. Is that the sort of gay leadership your editor is defending? Or is your editor simply responding to a press release?
Jack Nichols: As I said, you may write a scathing denunciation of SLDN leadership if you regard it as inadequate and GayToday will print what you say. But now, it appears, your real view of SLDN seems to be surfacing. Perhaps they didn’t spend your donation as you’d hoped they would.
David France: You're engaging in a serious enterprise, media analysis.
Jack Nichols: And you are engaging in a serious enterprise, analysis in the media of gay rights groups.
David France: Put reasoning to the task.
Jack Nichols: Uh huh. OK.
David France: Also, sign your email so I know who I'm talking to!
Jack Nichols: You didn’t sign yours, though your name appeared in the sender’s slot—as mine does too. But I’m willing to compromise. I’ll sign mine if you’ll sign yours.
(signed) David. 
(signed) Cordially, Jack Nichols

JN is Senior Editor at GayToday: www.gaytoday.badpuppy.com

READ JACK'S COLUMN FROM LAST WEEK

 Jack Nichols is also the author of Men's Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity (Penguin); Welcome to Fire Island: Visions of Cherry Grove & the Pines (St. Martin's Press); and is co-author with Lige Clarke of I Have More Fun With You Than Anybody (St. Martin's Press); and Roommates Can't Always Be Lovers: An Intimate Guide to Male/Male Relationships (St. Martin's Press)