Petrelis Files

Dear Friends:

I've been informed by Sr. Mary Elizabeth that in my ten-point proposal to the Times I gave the wrong web address for her incredible site. It is www.aegis.org. Based on the misinformation from me, Gay City News gives the wrong address for Sister's site, so I will be in touch with the paper and ask them to run a correction.

^^^



http://gaycitynews.com/gcn_316/newsbriefs.html

Gay City News

New York, NY

April 15, 2004



NY Times Confronted on Ethics Policy

by Andy Humm

San Francisco AIDS activist Michael Petrelis, a shareholder of stock in the New York Times, attended the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting April 13 to challenge the paper’s conflicts of interest policy. Petrelis was motivated by the Times’ firing of stringer Jay Blotcher earlier this year after Times editors discovered Blotcher had been a spokesperson for ACT UP fifteen years ago. Petrelis has documented numerous conflicts by Times writers and executives in terms of outside activities and political contributions.

Petrelis especially focused on Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, the paper’s chief medical writer, who writes about the Centers for Disease Control and other health agencies but is also affiliated with the CDC, the Institute of Medicine, and NYU Medical Center among other such groups. The Times says that Altman’s work with these groups was cleared with his editors, but Petrelis says that’s not good enough. “His readers need to know about his associations,” he said. He also criticized Altman for often failing to quote critics of the CDC and its methods in his stories.

Petrelis formally proposed a Reporter’s Disclosure Page for the Times’ website as part of a ten-point reform program, especially as it relates to HIV/AIDS reporting. He also requested that the paper allow its AIDS stories to be archived at AEGIS.com, The AIDS Education Global Information System. The Times requires fees for Internet recovery of stories more than seven days old. The Wall Street Journal and many other publications waive these fees for AEGIS.

Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. acknowledged getting Petrelis’s demands and promised to get back to him, but did not respond publicly to the proposals.

Gay City News asked Sulzberger what guidance he would give to young people about what affiliations they had better avoid if they aspire to write for the Times someday, given the fate of Blotcher. He started by relating the “misery” the Times went through after the Jason Blair scandal, then, reading from notes, insisted that Blotcher was not fired because he was a member of ACT UP, but because he was a spokesperson for it. He said the same policy would apply to someone who had been a spokesperson for AARP.

When told that all ACT UP members are considered spokespersons for the egalitarian group, Sulzberger said, “Perhaps you ought to consider changing that policy.”

Petrelis said, “I imagine the Times will reject my proposals,” but felt it was important to raise them because the paper “has so much influence.”