OutWeek
Encyclopedia
OutWeek Magazine was an influential gay
and lesbian
weekly news magazine published in New York City from 1989 to 1991. During its two year existence, OutWeek was widely considered the leading voice of AIDS
activism and the initiator of a radical new sensibility in lesbian and gay journalism.
. As a member of the activist group ACT UP, Rotello felt that New York needed a publication that would represent ACT UP’s new, more radical approach to activism.
At the same time, businessman and ACT UP member Kendall Morrison was planning to start a New York magazine that would provide a venue for advertising his popular gay phone sex
businesses. Although neither Rotello nor Morrison had any experience in journalism, the two decided to team up, with Morrison acting as publisher and Rotello as editor-in-chief.
From its first issue on June 26, 1989, OutWeek attracted considerable attention and the magazine repeatedly broke major stories both in New York and nationally.
Its coverage of the Covenant House
sex scandal, and its exclusive interview with Father Bruce Ritter
's main accuser, Kevin Kite, helped bring about Ritter's resignation.
At about the same time, OutWeek ignited a major local controversy by revealing that Mayor David Dinkins
' newly appointed Health Commissioner, Woody Meyers, advocated the quarantining of people with AIDS. The subsequent controversy pitted Dinkin's gay supporters against his black supporters (Meyers is black), leading the New York Times
to call the dispute "by far the most bitter" of the Dinkins administration.
By repeatedly breaking major stories, and through its intense coverage of the AIDS crisis, OutWeek became a significant journalistic presence in New York and was considered a "must read" in political and media circles far beyond the gay and lesbian community.
" controversy. This began in Michelangelo Signorile
's "GossipWatch" columns, in which the fiery writer railed against then-closeted public figures like David Geffen
and Liz Smith
for what he considered their complicity in a culture of silence around AIDS and gay rights.
On the death of tycoon Malcolm Forbes
in early 1990, OutWeek pushed the issue to the limit by publishing a cover story by Signorile titled "The Secret Gay Life of Malcolm Forbes." Since Forbes had been one of the most famous men in America, the story became a media sensation, the term "outing" entered the vocabulary, and a huge controversy erupted within the gay community.
Ironically, OutWeek outed only a handful of public figures during its existence, mostly in Signorile's column. But its vigorous defense of the idea that the media should treat the homosexuality of public figures the way it treats any other aspect of their private lives galvanized supporters, outraged opponents and forever stamped the magazine as the place where outing began.
In its article on the demise of Outweek, The New York Times noted that, "Outweek established itself from the start as the most progressive of the gay publications. Its controversial practice of "outing" -- exposing public figures who are gay and lesbian -- and its support of Act-Up and Queer Nation, two activist gay organizations, brought it national notoriety. “Outweek gave voice to a new generation of AIDS activists who had not previously had a public voice and provided a rallying point for the more militant members of the gay community."
Time Magazine wrote: "The magazine had earned recognition for its reporting on AIDS, homophobic assaults and gay politics, but its greatest success was in shaking up its competitors by challenging their brand of gay activism with a more militant stance."
The magazine's constant presence in the general media, and its sparking of repeated controversies, helped bring gay and AIDS issues into the mainstream.
Within the gay press, OutWeek caused a major shakeup. The Advocate
, the nation's oldest gay publication, saw its circulation decline relative to OutWeek. The result was a major revamp of the magazine. In 1990, The Advocate became a "gay and lesbian" publication for the first time, instead of just a magazine for gay men, and began to focus far more on politics and AIDS activism. Many other gay and lesbian publications became far feistier, and it is sometimes said that OutWeek pioneered a "new gay journalism."
Outing has become relatively mainstream, and the journalistic rules regarding the disclosure of the sexual orientation of public figures is now largely in keeping with OutWeek’s original goals. For example, when publishing mogul Jann Wenner
left his wife in the late 1990s, the Wall Street Journal reported on its front page - and without Wenner's permission - that he had moved in with his male lover. Many observers commented that such reporting would have been unthinkable before the outing controversy.
OutWeek also stirred significant controversy by its use of the term "queer" as an inclusive way to describe gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people. Queer is now extremely common, even appearing in the titles of TV shows like Queer as Folk and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Remarkably for a magazine that lasted only two years, OutWeek was named one of the "ten most influential 20th century gay publications" by the popular website Gay Today in 2001.
Michelangelo Signorile
became a well-known columnist, lecturer and author (Queer in America, Outing Yourself), and is now a popular talk-radio host on Sirius OutQ.
Arts editor Sarah Pettit became the executive editor of Out Magazine, then editor-in-chief, and then the arts editor of Newsweek
, before her death from cancer in 2003.
Copy editor 'Walter Armstrong became the editor-in-chief of Poz Magazine.
Staffers Dale Peck
, Karl Soehnlein and Jim Provenzano
all became well-known novelists.
Columnist Michael Goff
founded Out Magazine and was its first editor and president. He later became general manager of Microsoft's MSN
, and Dan Gillmor
's partner in early citizen-journalism effort, Bayosphere.
Staffer Victoria Starr became an author and the biographer of kd lang.
Production Manager Diana Osterfeld worked in Desktop Publishing (both creating magazines and training others at IMAGE Inc.) for many years before returning for a Masters in Architecture @ UT Austin. She is now in the process of becoming a licensed architect.
Reporter David Kirby
became a NY Times reporter and author of a best-selling expose on the alleged relationship between mercury and autism, Evidence of Harm.
Columnist James St. James
wrote the memoir Disco Bloodbath
, later made into a 1998 documentary and a 2003 feature film starring Macaulay Culkin
, both called Party Monster.
Advertising executive Troy Masters founded the New York weekly Gay City News and became its publisher.
Columnist Maria Maggenti is a highly regarded independent film director (The Incredibly True Adventures of 2 Girls in Love; Puccini for Beginners).
Rotello himself became the first openly gay columnist for a major newspaper (Newsday), later authored the best selling book Sexual Ecology
, and is now a TV documentary producer/director for HBO, Bravo and other networks.
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
and lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
weekly news magazine published in New York City from 1989 to 1991. During its two year existence, OutWeek was widely considered the leading voice of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
activism and the initiator of a radical new sensibility in lesbian and gay journalism.
Founding
OutWeek was originally conceived by musician and producer Gabriel RotelloGabriel Rotello
Douglas Gabriel Rotello is an openly gay American television documentary writer and producer, and the founder of OutWeek...
. As a member of the activist group ACT UP, Rotello felt that New York needed a publication that would represent ACT UP’s new, more radical approach to activism.
At the same time, businessman and ACT UP member Kendall Morrison was planning to start a New York magazine that would provide a venue for advertising his popular gay phone sex
Phone sex
Phone sex is a type of virtual sex that refers to sexually explicit conversation between or other persons via telephone, especially when at least one of the participants masturbates or engages in sexual fantasy...
businesses. Although neither Rotello nor Morrison had any experience in journalism, the two decided to team up, with Morrison acting as publisher and Rotello as editor-in-chief.
From its first issue on June 26, 1989, OutWeek attracted considerable attention and the magazine repeatedly broke major stories both in New York and nationally.
Its coverage of the Covenant House
Covenant House
Covenant House is the largest privately funded agency in the Americas providing shelter, food, immediate crisis care, and an array of other services to homeless, and runaway youth. In addition to basic needs, Covenant House provides a continuum of care to homeless youth aged 16–21 designed to...
sex scandal, and its exclusive interview with Father Bruce Ritter
Bruce Ritter
Rev. Bruce Ritter was a Roman Catholic priest and one-time Franciscan friar who founded the charity Covenant House in 1972 for homeless teenagers, from which he was forced to resign in 1990 after accusations that he had engaged in financial improprieties and had engaged in sexual relations with...
's main accuser, Kevin Kite, helped bring about Ritter's resignation.
At about the same time, OutWeek ignited a major local controversy by revealing that Mayor David Dinkins
David Dinkins
David Norman Dinkins is a former politician from New York City. He was the Mayor of New York City from 1990 through 1993; he was the first and is, to date, the only African American to hold that office.-Early life:...
' newly appointed Health Commissioner, Woody Meyers, advocated the quarantining of people with AIDS. The subsequent controversy pitted Dinkin's gay supporters against his black supporters (Meyers is black), leading the New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
to call the dispute "by far the most bitter" of the Dinkins administration.
By repeatedly breaking major stories, and through its intense coverage of the AIDS crisis, OutWeek became a significant journalistic presence in New York and was considered a "must read" in political and media circles far beyond the gay and lesbian community.
Outing Controversy
OutWeek is probably best remembered for sparking the "outingOuting
Outing is the act of disclosing a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person's true sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. Outing gives rise to issues of privacy, choice, hypocrisy, and harm in addition to sparking debate on what constitutes common good in efforts...
" controversy. This began in Michelangelo Signorile
Michelangelo Signorile
Michelangelo Signorile is a gay American writer, a national talk radio host whose program is aired each weekday across the United States and Canada. He is a political liberal, and covers a wide variety of political and cultural issues...
's "GossipWatch" columns, in which the fiery writer railed against then-closeted public figures like David Geffen
David Geffen
David Geffen is an American record executive, film producer, theatrical producer and philanthropist. Geffen is noted for creating Asylum Records in 1970, Geffen Records in 1980, and DGC Records in 1990...
and Liz Smith
Liz Smith (journalist)
Mary Elizabeth "Liz" Smith is an American gossip columnist. She is known as The Grand Dame of Dish.- Early life and career :...
for what he considered their complicity in a culture of silence around AIDS and gay rights.
On the death of tycoon Malcolm Forbes
Malcolm Forbes
Malcolm Stevenson Forbes was publisher of Forbes magazine, founded by his father B. C. Forbes and today run by his son Steve Forbes.-Life and career:...
in early 1990, OutWeek pushed the issue to the limit by publishing a cover story by Signorile titled "The Secret Gay Life of Malcolm Forbes." Since Forbes had been one of the most famous men in America, the story became a media sensation, the term "outing" entered the vocabulary, and a huge controversy erupted within the gay community.
Ironically, OutWeek outed only a handful of public figures during its existence, mostly in Signorile's column. But its vigorous defense of the idea that the media should treat the homosexuality of public figures the way it treats any other aspect of their private lives galvanized supporters, outraged opponents and forever stamped the magazine as the place where outing began.
Closing
The New York Times reported OutWeek's circulation at 40,000. Despite its journalistic awards and avid readership, OutWeek struggled to make a profit. In June 1991 it published its last edition, almost two years after it first appeared. It published 105 issues in all.In its article on the demise of Outweek, The New York Times noted that, "Outweek established itself from the start as the most progressive of the gay publications. Its controversial practice of "outing" -- exposing public figures who are gay and lesbian -- and its support of Act-Up and Queer Nation, two activist gay organizations, brought it national notoriety. “Outweek gave voice to a new generation of AIDS activists who had not previously had a public voice and provided a rallying point for the more militant members of the gay community."
Time Magazine wrote: "The magazine had earned recognition for its reporting on AIDS, homophobic assaults and gay politics, but its greatest success was in shaking up its competitors by challenging their brand of gay activism with a more militant stance."
Impact
Despite its brief existence, OutWeek left a significant legacy in many areas.The magazine's constant presence in the general media, and its sparking of repeated controversies, helped bring gay and AIDS issues into the mainstream.
Within the gay press, OutWeek caused a major shakeup. The Advocate
The Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...
, the nation's oldest gay publication, saw its circulation decline relative to OutWeek. The result was a major revamp of the magazine. In 1990, The Advocate became a "gay and lesbian" publication for the first time, instead of just a magazine for gay men, and began to focus far more on politics and AIDS activism. Many other gay and lesbian publications became far feistier, and it is sometimes said that OutWeek pioneered a "new gay journalism."
Outing has become relatively mainstream, and the journalistic rules regarding the disclosure of the sexual orientation of public figures is now largely in keeping with OutWeek’s original goals. For example, when publishing mogul Jann Wenner
Jann Wenner
Jann Simon Wenner is the co-founder and publisher of the music and politics biweekly Rolling Stone, as well as the owner of Men's Journal and Us Weekly magazines.-Childhood:...
left his wife in the late 1990s, the Wall Street Journal reported on its front page - and without Wenner's permission - that he had moved in with his male lover. Many observers commented that such reporting would have been unthinkable before the outing controversy.
OutWeek also stirred significant controversy by its use of the term "queer" as an inclusive way to describe gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people. Queer is now extremely common, even appearing in the titles of TV shows like Queer as Folk and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Remarkably for a magazine that lasted only two years, OutWeek was named one of the "ten most influential 20th century gay publications" by the popular website Gay Today in 2001.
Staff
During OutWeek's existence, Rotello assembled a staff of young writers and editors. For many it was their first job in journalism, yet a large number went on to significant careers.Michelangelo Signorile
Michelangelo Signorile
Michelangelo Signorile is a gay American writer, a national talk radio host whose program is aired each weekday across the United States and Canada. He is a political liberal, and covers a wide variety of political and cultural issues...
became a well-known columnist, lecturer and author (Queer in America, Outing Yourself), and is now a popular talk-radio host on Sirius OutQ.
Arts editor Sarah Pettit became the executive editor of Out Magazine, then editor-in-chief, and then the arts editor of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, before her death from cancer in 2003.
Copy editor 'Walter Armstrong became the editor-in-chief of Poz Magazine.
Staffers Dale Peck
Dale Peck
Dale Peck is an American novelist, critic, and columnist. His 2009 novel, Sprout, won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Children's/Young Adult literature, and was a finalist for the Stonewall Book Award in the Children's and Young Adult Literature category.-Biography:Peck was raised in Kansas,...
, Karl Soehnlein and Jim Provenzano
Jim Provenzano
Jim Provenzano is an American author, playwright, photographer and currently the Assistant Arts Editor for the Bay Area Reporter.-Life and work:...
all became well-known novelists.
Columnist Michael Goff
Michael Goff
Michael Goff is a publisher, executive and entrepreneur who founded Out magazine and was its first editor in chief and President. The child of diplomats, Goff himself was rejected by the State Department for being gay....
founded Out Magazine and was its first editor and president. He later became general manager of Microsoft's MSN
MSN
MSN is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.The range of services offered by MSN has changed since its...
, and Dan Gillmor
Dan Gillmor
Dan Gillmor is a noted American technology writer and columnist. He is director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard...
's partner in early citizen-journalism effort, Bayosphere.
Staffer Victoria Starr became an author and the biographer of kd lang.
Production Manager Diana Osterfeld worked in Desktop Publishing (both creating magazines and training others at IMAGE Inc.) for many years before returning for a Masters in Architecture @ UT Austin. She is now in the process of becoming a licensed architect.
Reporter David Kirby
David Kirby
David Kirby is a journalist based in Brooklyn, New York, and was formerly a regular contributor to the New York Times since 1998. He is author of the 2005 book Evidence of Harm - Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy....
became a NY Times reporter and author of a best-selling expose on the alleged relationship between mercury and autism, Evidence of Harm.
Columnist James St. James
James St. James
James St. James is an American television personality, author, celebutante and former Club Kid of the Manhattan club scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s.James St...
wrote the memoir Disco Bloodbath
Disco Bloodbath
Disco Bloodbath: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland is a 1999 memoir written by James St. James about his life as a Manhattan celebutante and club kid. The book specifically chronicles his friend Michael Alig's rise to fame and his subsequent murder of fellow club kid and drug dealer...
, later made into a 1998 documentary and a 2003 feature film starring Macaulay Culkin
Macaulay Culkin
Macaulay Carson Culkin is an American actor. He became widely known for his portrayal of Kevin McCallister in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. He is also known for his roles in Richie Rich, Uncle Buck, My Girl, The Pagemaster, and Party Monster...
, both called Party Monster.
Advertising executive Troy Masters founded the New York weekly Gay City News and became its publisher.
Columnist Maria Maggenti is a highly regarded independent film director (The Incredibly True Adventures of 2 Girls in Love; Puccini for Beginners).
Rotello himself became the first openly gay columnist for a major newspaper (Newsday), later authored the best selling book Sexual Ecology
Sexual Ecology
Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men is a book by Gabriel Rotello written in his days as a gay activist. Rotello makes the point that the large number of sexual partners available to members of the "gay fast lane" created an ecological niche which allowed the rapid early spread of...
, and is now a TV documentary producer/director for HBO, Bravo and other networks.