Distinguished Service Award to Don Michaels

Presented by former GLAA President Mindy Daniels

GLAA 31st Anniversary Reception
Hotel Washington
Thursday, April 18, 2002

In October, 1997, author Larry Kramer called The New York Blade News "a timid piece of toilet paper that people can wrap their old fish in." Kramer accused the publisher, a fellow named Don Michaels, of being "in bed, so to speak, with someone whose work is really questionable." He was referring not to himself, but to the heterosexual partners in The News York Blade News' advertising and distribution departments. This unflattering description was remarkably interesting, since the first issue had not yet been published. Don coolly replied, "If he called to beat up on me about partnering with a straight outfit, I'd have to ask [Kramer] why he turned to Barbara Streisand to finance The Normal Heart."

This was far from Don's only experience that just makes it all worthwhile. Once he was the target of a sit-in by some leftists who accused him of genocide. On another occasion, he chased pseudo-scientist Paul Cameron out of the Blade archives after the notorious homophobe had given the receptionist a false name. These are some of the reasons why, for the past several years, security at the Blade offices was better than at many federal office buildings.

Don Michaels is an institution in Washington's gay community. The reason can be gleaned from his comments on the launching of The New York Blade News: "What we're doing hasn't been tried before -- hard news with a fulltime staff on decent salaries and benefits." As Don told The Washington City Paper last year, the Blade built its journalistic reputation by "reporting not just about the issues but about the gay community -- warts and all." In other words, the Blade set its sights higher than a rag that reprints press releases and trades in boosterism and gossip. Under the leadership of Don Michaels, the Blade held itself to traditional standards of journalism. That is why we didn't try to give him this award before now: we felt he would consider it a conflict of interest. And we knew better than to think that flattery would improve our coverage.

Don firmly defended the independence of the editorial side of the paper from the advertising side. Once he fielded a call from a certain openly gay congressman, who was angry about the Blade's take on a particular story and said it was a sorry excuse for a community paper. Don replied that the congressman was just mad that the Blade wasn't giving it his spin. A typical Don Michaels reply. And we think that since that day Lou Chibbaro has never had his calls returned by the representative from the Fourth District of Massachusetts.

Back in 1977, Don was one of the few people writing for the Blade who used his real name. Ironically, it was such a perfect name that everyone assumed it was a pseudonym. Actually, Don was publishing a respectable family newspaper, the opinions of certain obsessives in Virginia notwithstanding. He even put the racier personal ads in a separate pull-out section. And he had the talented Jim Deely to work miracles in display advertising.

Don Michaels, with lots of help from Jim Lamont and Lisa Keen, made The Washington Blade the standard by which other gay newspapers in this country are judged. The Blade became our gold standard. The luxury of having a community newspaper of such high quality to take for granted week after week did not stop us from complaining on occasion, but it did make our whole town look better.

Now we pause to recognize his achievements, to thank the top guy for his many years of leadership and service, and to say congratulations on a job well done. It is my personal pleasure, and on belhalf of GLAA, to present this Distinguished Service Award to Don Michaels.