Leroy "Roy" F. Aarons (December 8, 1933 – November 28, 2004) was an American journalist, editor, author, playwright, founder of the
National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association
NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, is an American professional association dedicated to unbiased coverage of LGBTQ issues in the media. It is based in Washington, D.C., and the membership consists primarily of journalists, students, edu ...
(NLGJA), and founding member of the
Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
The Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education (MIJE), is an American nonprofit organization that trains people of color to become journalists, editors and newspaper managers. It also seeks to increase their presentation in media outlets ...
. In 2005 he was inducted into the NLGJA Hall of Fame.
Early life
Born in Bronx, New York, on December 8, 1933 to
Latvian-Jewish immigrant parents. Leroy F. Aarons Aarons graduated ''
cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...
'' from
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
and earned an MS from the
Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City.
Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism s ...
. He served in the Navy and Naval Reserve, attained the rank of lieutenant, and was a copyeditor at the ''New Haven Journal-Courier.''
At ''The Washington Post''
Aarons worked at the ''Post'' for many years. As an editor and a national correspondent, he served as New York bureau chief and later established the paper's first Los Angeles bureau. He covered major events of the 1960s and 1970s such as the assassinations of
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
and
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, ...
, urban riots, and government scandals.
Aarons had a front-row seat when the ''
Pentagon Papers
The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States in the Vietnam War, United States' political and military ...
'' story surfaced. As Los Angeles bureau chief, he covered California-related events in the case, including what work Daniel Ellsberg had been doing for the
Rand Corporation
The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...
and how he managed to remove the Pentagon Papers from Rand headquarters.
The scandal that forced a president to resign was
Watergate
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
, and the ''Post'' was the paper that broke the story. Because of his role at the paper during the Watergate reporting, Aarons was hired as an accuracy consultant for the ''Post''-centered film about the scandal, ''
All the President's Men
''All the President's Men'' is a 1974 non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two of the journalists who investigated the June 1972 break-in at the Watergate Office Building and the resultant political scandal for ''The Washington ...
''.
Work with Robert C. Maynard
In 1981 Aarons met Israeli computer consultant Joshua Boneh at his
Jewish Community Center
A Jewish Community Center or a Jewish Community Centre (JCC) is a general recreational, social clubs, social, and Fraternal and service organizations, fraternal organization serving the Jewish community in a number of cities. JCCs promote Jewish ...
in Washington D.C.
[ "He followed Boneh to Israel" in 1982 where he covered the Lebanon War for '']Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
''.[ The two celebrated their 20th anniversary with a ]commitment ceremony
A wedding is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of marriage vo ...
at the same JCC where they met.[ Aarons joined the '']Oakland Tribune
The ''Oakland Tribune'' is a weekly newspaper published in Oakland, California, by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of MediaNews Group.
Founded in 1874, the ''Tribune'' rose to become an influential daily newspaper. With the declin ...
,'' urged by former colleague Robert C. Maynard
Robert Clyve Maynard (June 17, 1937 – August 17, 1993) was an American journalist, newspaper publisher and editor, former owner of ''The Oakland Tribune'', and co-founder of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in Oakla ...
. Maynard had purchased the declining ''Tribune'' and recruited Roy to be its features editor.
In the 1970s Aarons had joined Maynard in founding what would become the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
The Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education (MIJE), is an American nonprofit organization that trains people of color to become journalists, editors and newspaper managers. It also seeks to increase their presentation in media outlets ...
(MIJE). Maynard had been working with a summer program for minority journalists at Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and he urged Aarons to join its faculty. In 1976, the program moved to the University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
as the Summer Program for Minority Journalists. It later became MIJE, a model program in training and supporting minority journalists.
At the ''Tribune'', Aarons rose to executive editor and then to senior vice president for news, where he worked for greater staff diversity.[Maynard Institute](_blank)
He led his team to a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography
The Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography is one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. From 2000 it has used the "breaking news" name but it is considered a continuation of the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photogr ...
of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred on California's Central Coast on October 17 at local time. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County, approximately northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of t ...
. The following year he retired from journalism.
Activism
In 1989 the American Society of Newspaper Editors
The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) was a membership organization for editors, producers or directors in charge of journalistic organizations or departments, deans or faculty at university journalism schools, and leaders and faculty of ...
(ASNE) asked Aarons to coordinate a survey of gay and lesbian journalists. Responses from 250 print journalists revealed that most were closeted in their newsrooms. An overwhelming majority said coverage of gay issues was "at best mediocre." Fewer than 60 percent had told colleagues about their sexual orientation; fewer than 7 percent said their work environments were good for gays. At ASNE's national convention in 1990, Aarons presented the results and closed his speech by coming out. Four months after his speech, Aarons convened six journalists in his California dining room to launch the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association
NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, is an American professional association dedicated to unbiased coverage of LGBTQ issues in the media. It is based in Washington, D.C., and the membership consists primarily of journalists, students, edu ...
(NLGJA). He was its president until 1997, and remained on the board until his death.Brian Moylan. Washington Blade. December 3, 2004
/ref>
After working for over a year, in Fall 2003, Aarons, Dane S. Claussen, Amy Falkner, Rhonda Gibson, and others relaunched the then-GLBT Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC). Aarons asked Claussen to serve as the first Head, but he could not because he already was to be 2003-4 Head of AEJMC's Mass Communication & Society Division. David Adams and Sue Lafky served as the first Co-Heads, with Claussen as Vice-Head/Program Chair, and Aarons as Secretary. Aarons, then teaching at the University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
, followed that up by persuading the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC) to add sexual orientation content in its curriculum diversity standard.
On its 15th anniversary in 2006, NLGJA established the annual Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship Award for a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender student pursuing a journalism career. CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...
provided $100,000 to fund the scholarship. The AEJMC LGBTQ Interest Group's Teaching Committee also awards, generally every two years, its Leroy F. Aarons Award for lifetime contributions to university teaching and/or research related to the LGBTQ communities.
Influence in journalism
In the 1970s, Aarons collaborated with Robert Maynard in starting programs to train people of color for journalism careers, then switching to LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is a ...
issues in journalism.
Aarons believed that coverage of the gay community, as with other minorities, required training of journalists. He began to lobby journalism schools to include gay issues in their diversity training
Diversity training is any program designed to facilitate positive intergroup interaction, reduce prejudice and discrimination, and generally teach individuals who are different from others how to work together effectively.
Diversity training is o ...
. In 1999, as a visiting professor of journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication
The USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism comprises a School of Communication and a School of Journalism at the University of Southern California (USC). Starting July 2017, the school’s Dean is Willow Bay, succeeding Ernest J. ...
, he founded and directed its Sexual Orientation Issues in the News program. Adapted by universities, the program analyzes how the media has shaped public perception of people and issues since the early 20th century. In 2003, Aarons, Dane S. Claussen, David L. Adams, and several other U.S. journalism professors relaunched the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is a major international membership organization for academics in the field, offering regional and national conferences and refereed publications. It has numerous membershi ...
. The group biannually presents the Leroy F. Aarons Award for career contributions to media-oriented education and research affecting LGBTQ.
In 1985, Aarons started We the People - The Voice North Bay's LGBT Community, which was a monthly newspaper for 27 years.
Music and opera
Aarons had a love of music and often invited colleagues and friends to his home in California for sing-along parties. In the last decade of his career, Aarons turned to opera, writing the libretto fo
''Monticello''.
Composed by Glenn Paxton, ''Monticello'' portrays the love affair between Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
and Sally Hemings
Sarah "Sally" Hemings ( 1773 – 1835) was an enslaved woman with one-quarter African ancestry owned by president of the United States Thomas Jefferson, one of many he inherited from his father-in-law, John Wayles.
Hemings's mother Elizabet ...
. L. A. Theatre Works produced the original work in 2000.
After the attacks of Sep 11, 2001, Aarons wrote the libretto for ''Sara's Diary, 9/11'', an opera composed by his collaborator on ''Monticello'', Glenn Paxton. A song cycle, this work is a fictional account of a pregnant woman, who, after her husband dies in the tragedy, experiences deeply mixed emotions. It premiered at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center on Sep 8, 2003 in commemoration of the unprecedented attacks.
''Prayers for Bobby''
In 1989 Aarons read a newspaper article about the suicide of a young gay man, Bobby Griffith, and its effects on his mother. After he left daily journalism in 1991, he researched the story in depth. The result was his first book, published by HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
in 1995, '' Prayers for Bobby: A Mother's Coming to Terms with the Suicide of Her Gay Son''. He did not see it presented to a large viewership before he died. ''Prayers for Bobby
''Prayers for Bobby'' is a televised drama film that premiered on the Lifetime network on January 24, 2009. The film is based on the book of the same name by Leroy F. Aarons, which is itself based on the true story of the life and legacy of B ...
'' premiered on January 24, 2009, as a Lifetime
Lifetime may refer to:
* Life expectancy, the length of time a person is expected to remain alive
Arts, entertainment, and media
Music
* Lifetime (band), a rock band from New Jersey
* ''Life Time'' (Rollins Band album), by Rollins Band
* ...
TV film starring Sigourney Weaver
Susan Alexandra "Sigourney" Weaver (; born October 8, 1949) is an American actress. A figure in science fiction and popular culture, she has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Gram ...
in her first made-for-television film.
Other works
In 1991 Aarons revisited the ''Pentagon Papers'' case, co-authoring a docudrama
Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event".
Docudramas typic ...
with Geoffrey Cowan
Geoffrey Cowan is an American lawyer, professor, author, and non-profit executive. He is currently a University Professor at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership and directs ...
''Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers''
. That year it aired on National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
, performed by Ed Asner
Eddie Asner (; November 15, 1929 – August 29, 2021) was an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild. He is best remembered for portraying Lou Grant during the 1970s and early 1980s, on both ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' an ...
and Marsha Mason
Marsha Mason (born April 3, 1942) is an American actress and director. She has been nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Actress: for her performances in ''Cinderella Liberty'' (1973), ''The Goodbye Girl'' (1977), '' Chapter Two'' ...
. The play won the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial, ...
's Gold Award for best live entertainment program on public radio. ''Top Secret'' still tours colleges nationwide as a production of LA Theatre Works.
Death
On November 28, 2004, Leroy Aarons died of cancer. He was 70 years old.
At the time of his death, Aarons was working on another play, ''Night Nurse'', about South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state act ...
, for which he and his life partner of 24 years, Joshua Boneh
had spent a month in South Africa doing researc
An actor and producer in Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
performed it as a work-in-progress in Mill Valley
Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 census.
Mill Valley is located on the western and ...
br>
The play has not yet been completed.
Notes
External links
Roy Aarons Official Website
*
Prayers for Bobby
Top Secret: Battle for the Pentagon Papers
''Monticello''
ASNE
NLGJA
Maynard Institute
PFLAG
Annenberg School for Communication
Annenberg Sexual Orientation Issues in the News Program
Maynard Institute announcement of Aarons' death
NPR tribute to Aarons
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aarons, Leroy F.
1933 births
2004 deaths
American editors
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
American LGBT writers
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Writers from the Bronx
United States Navy officers
Gay dramatists and playwrights
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
American male dramatists and playwrights
LGBT Jews
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Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni
20th-century American male writers
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