Press Release

NAHJ Mourns the Death of NLGJA Founder Roy Aarons

Washington, D.C. - The National Association of Hispanic Journalists mourns the death of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) founder and journalism pioneer Roy Aarons, who passed away on November 28.

Aarons had been battling cancer and died unexpectedly of heart failure at his California home at the age of 70. He is survived by his partner, Joshua Baron.

While working as the executive editor of the Oakland Tribune in 1990, Aarons was asked to coordinate a study examining the lives of gay and lesbian journalists working at U.S. newspapers by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE). He presented the results of the study, Alternatives: Gays and Lesbians in the Newsroom, at ASNE's annual convention in Washington, D.C. and at the same time, publicly disclosed his own sexuality.

When the report stirred a nationwide interest in creating a professional organization, Aarons and six other journalists and founded NLGJA later that year. The association was officially incorporated in 1991 and today has 24 chapters and more than 1,200 members nationwide, with affiliates in Canada and Germany. NLGJA's work to promote more fair and accurate coverage of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues for more than a decade has improved the overall quality of journalism in the U.S.

"With Roy's passing, we lost one of the front-line soldiers in the fight to open and diversify newsrooms," said Iván Román, NAHJ's executive director. "He was not only committed to excellent journalism, but to have all kinds of people producing it. While being the flag bearer for fair coverage of gays and lesbians, his words and his actions proved to us that ensuring racial and ethnic diversity was just as important to him and foremost in his mind."

Aarons was as a Washington Post national correspondent for 14 years and the paper's New York and Los Angeles bureau chief. He had also worked at Time and People magazines and at the New Haven Journal-Courier prior to becoming the executive editor of the Oakland Tribune. Under his tenure, the Tribune was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for its 1989 photographic coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco.

Most recently, Aarons was a professor of journalism at the University of Southern California Annenberg and director of its Sexual Orientation Issues in the News program. In September 2003, he worked to persuade the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications to add sexual orientation issues to its accreditation criteria.

The NAHJ grieves the loss of Roy Aarons and pays tribute to his inspirational life and work.