ABSTRACT
Jeffrey schmalz collapsed with a brain seizure at The New York Times national desk in December 1990, he was in the closet and in denial. But his seizure—the result of an AIDS-related brain disease that nearly always killed its victims in months—abruptly altered that. He returned to reporting in late February 1992; his first article about AIDS came in June. At that point, few beyond the Times knew Schmalz was writing about himself as well as others. Gradually, more of his articles dealt with issues of AIDS and the politics of gay life, showing up among more general filings from the campaign trail, and in the newsroom, the obvious questions of appropriateness and conflict of interest were quickly in play. Schmalz's last article was written as his health went into its final decline, and appeared in The New York Times Magazine on November 28, 1993, a few weeks after his death on November 6.
