Charles Koehler 0:00 I'm Charles Koehler, and this is Lambda Reports, a weekly program by and for the St. Louis area lesbian and gay community here on Jukebox 96. Being lesbian or gay can be an isolating, confusing experience. When they first come out, many people don't know who to turn to, are what's available or what's happening in the lesbian and gay community. We're fortunate, though, that the Midwest has an excellent publication. For over 10 years, it served as a crucial source of information for thousands of people in our all too invisible communities. We welcome the editor in chief of the lesbian and gay news telegraph, Jim Thomas. Good morning, Jim, and welcome to Lambda RTimeports. Jim Thomas 0:41 Good morning. Charles Koehler 0:42 When you first started the News-Telegraph, Jim, over a decade ago, did you have any clue that the newspaper would be such a success throughout the Midwest? Jim Thomas 0:51 Oh, we had clues. They were just all the wrong ones. Charles Koehler 0:55 Tell us about that. Jim Thomas 0:57 We were very, very naive. I like to say it was like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, let's have a newspaper. We really had no notion of what we were getting into in terms of the complexity of the task. I think what we did have an understanding of, though, was that there was a real need for reliable, independent, accurately presented information to the community. There had been other publications in St. Louis and around the Midwest. There was another one that existed at the time, in fact, which served kind of a social function, you know, covered what was happening in the bars, that kind of stuff. But there was no place where really good news in the real sense of that term of, you know, treating the serious, treating seriously the community and its needs, and what was happening politically, what was happening with organizations, different people in the community, what kind of leadership are they exerting to really just cover the whole gamut of what It means to be a community. And obviously there was a need for that. I think we've served it pretty well. We've grown over the years. We started out just being in St. Louis, we've now expanded that. We're in all or parts of five states. Charles Koehler 2:14 So that's, that's parts of the reason region that the news telegraph covers. That's, Jim Thomas 2:18 Yeah, all of Missouri, all of Arkansas. We cover Southern Illinois, eastern Kansas and western Tennessee. Charles Koehler 2:27 Well, you see the News-Telegraph as a regional rather than just a St. Louis-based publication. And how has this approach affected news coverage in the St Louis area in particular? Jim Thomas 2:39 I'm not sure. In reality that it's affected it all that strongly in principle. We have a real commitment to covering local news in the various communities that we're in. We do that to varying degrees of success based on the resources that we have available to us. In other words, we're poor, bare bones Charles Koehler 3:05 bare bones Jim Thomas 3:06 Right. So it's not like we have lots of money to hire reporters and have them out covering everything, and we don't always have the time, because we're a small staff to, like, track down every little tidbit. I sometimes think people think that, you know, we're like some sort of hound dog, you know. You know, we sniff around. And there's a story in the air. I've got to find it. You know, it doesn't work that way. If people don't tell us something is happening, then we don't know it's happening. So a lot of your psychic your a lot of your reports then come from your readers. Based, it's based on readers letting us know something is happening, or somebody sending us a press release, or we happen to hear about something, it comes from a lot of different sources locally, certainly, those are the principal sources. Nationally. I follow and track a number of different publications, like as in about sixty to see what's happening around the country, and we'll do follow up phone calls, then to do our own story WE get press releases from various groups around the country, national and local groups in various places. So it's a lot of different sources. And it takes time to build up those sources. That's something that, you know, for instance, our coverage in St. Louis and Kansas City is pretty good. Our coverage in Little Rock isn't as good. We haven't been there as long. We haven't been able to put the resources in that community yet that we've put into St. Louis and Kansas City. Charles Koehler 4:34 So it's a publication that's really evolving. But as the newspaper has evolved, what have been some of the major changes that you've seen over the decade that the News-Telegraph has been in existence. Jim Thomas 4:48 Well, the obvious one is that when we started the paper, nobody had ever heard of AIDS. And you know, I still remember those first months of how do we cover this? What does It mean? And that's obviously had just an overwhelming impact on everything about our community, how it's organized, how we think, how we think about ourselves, and the kinds of lives that we lead, so that that clearly has to be the principle change. Beyond that, I would simply say a real maturing in the community. We are still, ten years later, even, much less where we were 10 years ago, a very young community. Evolution in our community is very rapid in terms of political maturity, sensibility, individual understandings of who we are as a community, how we interact, whether I tend to get focused on politics, because that's so newsworthy and tends to be the kind of thing that we cover, but, but that's true culturally as well. And by culture, I don't just mean a symphony orchestra somewhere. I mean how we as individuals think of ourselves and interact with each other, what we demand from our institutions, the kinds of services that we want for ourselves, whether that's a softball league or a volleyball league, or whether that's the ability to have professional services that are specialized to our kinds of concerns, attorneys, dentists, counselors, whatever, all of those are things in which we are growing and continue to grow at a very rapid clip. And I think that has a lot to do with why the paper is still evolving and growing at such a rapid clip. I mean, 10 years, I think it seems like such a long time to have this nice, stable, easy operation, but no such luck. I mean, it's changing all the time, and we're constantly having to look at is what we are doing appropriate to the community that we're trying to serve. And it really does change. Charles Koehler 7:07 Well, as you look back over the past decade, what have been some of the major highlights or accomplishments of the newspaper? Jim Thomas 7:16 Well, I think the major one is just that we succeeded and are here at all. I remember when we started up, and I would talk to people about what it is that we were going to try to do. There were four of us that started the paper. There were people who just said, that's not going to fly here in St Louis. We're not ready for it, or it's just not needed, or those kinds of things that just indicated that they didn't understand a need that we felt was there, and it was kind of a stab in the dark, perhaps, and I think that we have done a real good job with being a serious source of news for our community, Charles Koehler 8:02 and that's something that was recognized back in September of last year by the St. Louis Post Dispatch and a rather nice feature article. Jim Thomas 8:11 Right? They did? Ellen Futterman wrote the article, and I was very appreciative. It actually was a pretty laudatory article and Charles Koehler 8:18 Well-deserved. I'm sure. Jim Thomas 8:20 It's for others to say, not me. Charles Koehler 8:23 Well, are there any any stories or features in particular that you're particularly proud of that you've done? Jim Thomas 8:29 Oh, that is a good question. You know, I'm sure that there are. I don't mean to dodge the question, but truly, when you've put out so many issues, they start to blend together. And, you know, somebody will come up to me and say, Oh, real good editorial in the last issue. And I have to struggle to remember what, you know, what the particular thing that I did was. And now, if somebody comes up and says that editorial that you wrote on some particular subject, then I'll remember the editorial. I just don't remember whether it happened last month or six months ago, because it's such a pressure to have to pull the paper together. I would say that the things that you know, rather than a specific article that stands out, I would have to say that you know I think that it is the news that I'm most proud of in the paper, rather than some particular feature piece that that we did, that we try very hard to present to, to anybody who picks up the paper and reads it, that there's a real community here that is worthy of being treated seriously, and I think we succeed at that, and that is truly what I'm most proud of about the paper. I will, however, say that in our January issue, there was an editorial that I did on the 200th Anniversary of the Bill of Rights that I was particularly pleased. Charles Koehler 10:01 I was impressed by that, Jim Thomas 10:03 and you'll notice I did remember it was in the January. Charles Koehler 10:06 Yes, great. Well, some of our listeners, I'm sure, have never seen a copy of the News-Telegraph. Can you just real briefly mention some of the different departments, what they'd find in a typical issue and where they can get a copy. Okay? Jim Thomas 10:22 Well, a paper, a typical paper, looks like what you think of a traditional daily type newspaper would look like. It's got a front page with news articles on it, and I say that to distinguish it, say, from the approach of the Riverfront Times, where you have a single feature story that then continues somewhere deep in the paper, which is more identified with kind of a magazine format. Charles Koehler 10:48 Are there any, are there any main, I'll say, mainstream publications that their listeners might be familiar with it that this might be similar to? Jim Thomas 10:55 Well, it's like a miniature version, just in terms of the look of, say, the Post Dispatch even, you know, it's in a tabloid size. So it's a small it's not the broad sheet, which is what the Post is. It's a smaller, more compact format. So we can't do quite as much on any given page, but, you know, you look at the front page and there's a lead news story and, you know, it's print with photos and that kind of thing. And the front section is news, and it's usually anywhere between 14 to 20 pages of the paper, about half the paper that is dedicated to news. Then we have two to three pages that are kind of the op ed commentary. We have four regular columnists who run in the paper. Charles Koehler 11:43 What sort of topics do they cover? Jim Thomas 11:44 They cover the gamut everything from personal observations about violence in the community to talking about what's going on in the presidential races or in this coming issue. For instance, will have two columns, both about naming. Kris Kleindienst is going to talk about the March on Washington, and the concerns that people have about, number one, the name just being way way too long, which is a concern I share, and also the inclusion of bisexuals in the title, and kind of what that means and why that has importance to us. And then we have a guest column. Actually, normally Tom Charlton would be writing in this column, but he is acting as our lobbyist over in the state legislature, and asked me for a leave of absence while he was doing the legislature is in session. So we have a guest column from a man named Jeffrey Nickel, who lives in Washington, on the use of the word queer, and the kinds of concerns that he has around use of that word. I should add, he takes a position against using the word queer. I haven't actually totally sorted that out for myself. I don't entirely agree with all of his points, but I certainly think it'll raise interesting questions for readers. And then there is often an editorial, but not in every single issue, letters to the editor. Those kinds of things appear in that section. And then we have a feature section which includes book reviews, movie reviews, theater reviews, a calendar of events in the community, we have a comics page, crossword puzzle, those kinds of stuff, and that fills out the remainder of the paper. Charles Koehler 13:33 Great. Well, where can our listeners get a copy? Jim Thomas 13:36 We're distributed free, so you have to look for us. We do offer subscriptions. It's $25 a year. That's for 12 monthly issues, and you just have to look for it, but I will give some clues here. We're distributed in all the bars, lots of little retail outlets, restaurants, that kind of thing, key neighborhoods, probably for somebody who doesn't already have a place that they pick it up, are going to be the Central West End along the Euclid Strip, places like Pages, Video or More, Left Bank Books, Sprint Print, Sunshine Inn restaurant, any of those places along there or out in the Delmar Loop. We have considerable distribution along in there, the Tivoli theater, Paul's Books, Front Page News, that kind of thing. So those are the two places where it's easiest for somebody to get hold of it. But in fact, we're distributed pretty much throughout the city, lot of places down in Soulard on the Near South Side. So certainly, if somebody wants to call the paper, we'd be able to guide them to the closest distribution point. Charles Koehler 14:48 Great. There's some of your people that have made comments about some of the ads that have been placed in the newspaper, and I know this has been brought up before. For about some of the 900 phone numbers that are found in there, and I heard you before explain the reason why the the News-Telegraph does include them. Jim Thomas 15:10 Well, it actually may be a moot point, given the recent Supreme Court ruling about the 900 numbers, they're probably all going to go out of business anyway, but it is something that it's probably the area of the paper that people, if they're going to be uncomfortable with something, that's it, and it's something that we've had varying levels of comfort with ourselves. We've certainly talked about it and continue to talk about it at the paper. And what we've come to is that every time we've tried to talk about, how do we set standards for advertising, beyond really basic, minimal standards, like, Is the information in the ad true? You know, will it get us in legal trouble for some reason? Either obscenity or bar ads, you have to be careful with because they're very strict rules that the State puts out in terms of how you can advertise liquor. Or if they have little games where they give away awards or something, there are real strict regulations about how that can be advertised. Or, like the a charitable group does a lottery, or a lottery is the wrong term for it. In fact, that's what they're not supposed to do. They do some sort of drawing, though, or raffle or whatever. There are real restrictions on how that can be advertised. So there's those kinds of basic things that we look at. Beyond that, we start to get into troubled waters. And what would happen is, you know, somebody would say, I'm offended by this ad, and would point to a Fur Company ad, for instance. And then somebody else would say, Well, I like that ad, but I'm offended by that ad that you said you like. You know, what it comes down to is that personal tastes have tremendous variation, and that's particularly true in a community that is as diverse as we are, and we just kept running into these problems that you know, the women were upset by an ad for a 900 number that had a skimply clad man in it. The men were offended by an ad for the Michigan Women's music festival that spelled women in a different way than it's traditionally spelled. You know, they didn't like that, said women only in it, or something like that. And we really just had to come down to that. We run every ad unless it violates those basic things that we can somehow objectively measure for all of us. Charles Koehler 17:46 And I'm sure that the news telegraph is not the only publication that runs into these questions. Jim Thomas 17:51 Well, although I suppose there is a difference in that I'm fairly democratic in our discussion about it at the paper, there are papers where the publisher's taste would be whatever wins out. And we do recognize however, that we can exert some control over what's in the paper by what we seek. And so there are certain categories of ads that if they come to us, we'll run the ad, but we don't seek them out. 900 numbers happen to fall in that category. None of those ads have been solicited by us. They are companies that have, for whatever reason, found us and decided that they want to be in our paper. Charles Koehler 18:30 I understand that you're, in addition to being editor in chief of the News-Telegraph there, you're also on the board of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which is an extremely important national organization, and that there will be a meeting of the National Board here in St. Louis this May 8 through 10th. What? What have you learned being on the board? Jim Thomas 18:55 Well, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is the oldest of our national organizations, and in terms of membership, is the largest. It's not the largest in terms of budget, Human Rights Campaign Fund has that position. And it's it serves a huge array of functions. I suppose the best way of classifying them is in some sort of idealistic phrase, like service to the community. It's in Washington, so naturally, there's some focus on lobbying on the Hill. Perry Giagredecek is our legislative director, and she does a superb job on Capitol Hill. But I would say that the real focus of the group is it acts as a clearing house and a provider of resources for local organizations throughout the country. They are just constantly inundated on our staff with requests for help and information from all over the country, and I think NGLTF is really perceived as the organization that does that, and in fact, that's why I agreed to be on its board. I really thought a lot about it. It was a huge commitment to be willing to be on the board of a national organization, really the premier organization of our community. And I also thought a little bit about potential conflict of interest, and we've set up some procedures to deal with that. In terms of articles on the Task Force get reviewed by other people, rather than just myself, but the Task Force gives back. That's what's important about it, for me, is that for all of the important work that it does in Washington, and you know that we could get all highfalutin about it truly gives back the staff spends a tremendous amount of time working with and talking with people all over the country to make things happen. And I think that's a tremendously valuable function. I've been on the Board now for two years. I'm going into my third and final year. I could run for a second term, and I've chosen not to, although that's not to say I won't at some point in the future. Charles Koehler 21:14 Politician here. Jim Thomas 21:15 In any case, this is my final year for the time being, and I was very happy that the Board agreed to have its meeting here in St. Louis. We meet two times a year in Washington and one time somewhere else in the country, and I think it's going to be very exciting. This is a tremendously powerful board in terms of the range of experience that's on it, and I'm really trying to set it up so that people here in St. Louis will have real opportunities to interact with them. And, you know, I think in terms of my own personal experience, you asked, what I've learned from it is that it's been fascinating to be on this Board of Directors. I really had this image, even as I agreed to do it, that, you know, this was going to be all political, and there'd be little cliques, and one group would huddle over in this corner and figure out how to get past, you know, the obstacles that some other group was trying to put in the way of what they thought should happen. And meanwhile, the other group was over in the other corner doing the same thing. And it's not been that way at all. It's been a wonderful board to serve on. Very strong opinions, very strong people. I'm one of the quieter ones on the Board, but there has always been a real effort of people to work things out, to really do things honorably. Where people have disagreed with a decision that's been made, there's a real effort to make sure that there's an understanding of where we're going, and that the person does not feel alienated from the group. And there's a real humanity about being on the board that was a very pleasant surprise, and has been wonderful as I interact with all these people who have tremendously diverse viewpoints, with whom I don't always agree, with whom I sometimes vote against whatever they're wanting to do, and yet it's been this wonderful experience. We work very hard at our meetings, but I have yet to have a meeting where I've left feeling bad about what happened during the meetings, and I don't know, for anybody listening, who's ever been on a board, that's unusual. Let me tell you. Charles Koehler 23:31 Any word at all, but I'd like to put in a plug for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. They truly do some incredibly important work, and I personally have received back from them. I mean, it's an organization that really does. They're a change agent. They do create change in a very positive way. In just the few minutes we have left, I understand that you're also involved with a newly formed political organization in St. Louis called ACTION in about three minutes. Can you talk about that running short on ACTION? Jim Thomas 24:04 I'm even going to throw in another organization with other two interesting, new groups that have developed in Missouri. One is locally based. It's called ACTION. That's all caps, but it doesn't stand for it's not an acronym, no, just me. It just means, we mean it forcefully. And it's basically a local political group. Its first real activity is working with the nominating caucuses for the presidential campaign here in Missouri. There's some interesting work going on with that. To work with local political officials. Violence, concerns that we have in the community about enforcement of the hate crimes law is going to be a major focus of the group, I think Charles Koehler 24:04 Things like gay bashings? Jim Thomas 24:04 Right, right, but I think the main purpose is to really develop a political presence in the formal political processes of the community, and that means primarily, but not exclusively, electoral politics dealing with our elected and appointed officials around the needs of our community. There's also another group called the Missouri Task Force for Gay and Lesbian Concerns, which has formed out of a two year process of statewide leadership meetings. And I think it too is going to be a very interesting group, primarily political and focused, but actually a great deal of the focus is going to be on working with out-state areas, and so it may be politics, but not in the traditional sense that we think of that. And means organizing, but because we're organizing in rural areas and small towns, we may have to come up with new things that nobody's ever done before in terms of, how do you get people organized and get them together to have some sense of community. Charles Koehler 25:42 It sounds like a real challenge. Jim Thomas 25:43 Yeah, I think it will be. Initially. It's working with a lobbyist in the state legislature that's made a tremendous difference already. Tom Charlton is functioning as that lobbyist, and it's made an amazing difference just to have somebody up there. There's talk about having some conferences just for networking and skill building, and I think it'll be real interesting to see how the group develops. It's still very new, and I'm not, I think it's kind of unpredictable right now as to where it's going to go, but I feel very good about the steering committee that's been brought aboard for it, and I think stay tuned. It's going to be interesting to watch where both of these groups go. I Charles Koehler 26:23 Hmm. It sounds like you're breaking into some incredibly new waters and some unexplored territory. Jim Thomas 26:30 And I think bringing in some new people. It's not going to be me doing a lot of this. I actually intend to kind of back off some now that they're going. ACTION was actually initiated by Toby Lackey with the Pride Committee, who was observing that there's going to be a mayor's race in this city, and somebody had to be doing something. And so I kind of helped out getting that started. I'm not going to be in the leadership group on either one myself, but I'm certainly going to be watching what they do. And I think it will be exciting. Charles Koehler 26:57 With the 2.5 or 2.8 million St. Louisans out there, that leaves quite a few lesbians and gays and supportive people that could be involved. Jim Thomas 27:07 Absolutely, and I think these are both groups that people who have not been involved before could really enjoy getting involved with Charles Koehler 27:16 new territory, new opportunities. Great. We've been talking with Jim Thomas, Editor in Chief of the Lesbian and Gay News-Nelegraph. Jim, thanks for being with us, and best of wishes for another ten successful years and in all the other endeavors that you're involved with. Jim Thomas 27:32 Thank you very much. Charles Koehler 27:33 Great. And if you our listeners would like more information about the News-Telegraph or the organizations ACTION or the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force or the Missouri Task Force. You can write to Jim Thomas of the News-Telegraph at Post Office Box 14229a, St. Louis, Missouri, 63178, that's the News-Telegraph Box 14229a, St. Louis, 63178, or you can call the offices at 361 0066, that's 361 0066. So until next week, this has been Charles Koehler for Lambda Reports. Tune us in again next week, same time, same station. Transcribed by https://otter.ai