Quest Magazine Volume 17 Issue 1
Quest Cover Feature

Fitzpatrick Steps Back and Speaks Out
By William Attewell

Over the last three decades, Mike Fitzpatrick has been one of Wisconsin’s most effective LGBT activists. He is also arguably one of our state’s longest serving and most widely-read gay journalists — outlasting a string of state LGBT publications and their editors since the mid-1980s.

While some may be familiar with his more than 25 years of work in HIV/AIDS or his long-time LGBT political activism, Fitzpatrick has over forty years of writing experience. His first paid piece appeared in the Winona Daily News in 1965. He has edited or contributed to newsletters and periodicals for schools, employers, local and statewide organizations, and churches non-stop since 1962.

Born and raised in the New York City area, he has called Wisconsin his home for over 45 years. He was instrumental in helping get several state LGBT institutions up and running. In the 1980s, he helped co-found the Central Wisconsin AIDS Support Group, Inc. (CWASG) and was a charter board member of the Central Wisconsin AIDS Network (CWAN), the forerunners of what is now the Wausau office of the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW). In the 1990s, he helped co-found the statewide LGBT civil rights organization Action (now Fair) Wisconsin and is a former president of that organization. In recent years, he has helped develop Rainbow Over Wisconsin (ROW) into one of the state’s three LGBT-focused charitable foundations.

Fitzpatrick’s political and community connections made him uniquely positioned as a journalist. He has personally covered scores and scores Pride events across the state over the years and has witnessed the ups and downs of the LGBT community in Wisconsin over nearly three decades.

His work with the statewide LGBT press began in 1980s with contributing stories for IN Step under founding publisher Ron Geiman. Ten years later, he was a columnist and writer for the Wisconsin Light. Starting in the mid-nineties, he was a prized reporter during my tenure as editor-in-chief of Wisconsin IN Step. It was during this time that his popular “Reality Check” columns became a must-read with readers enjoying the skillful way Fitzpatrick would take a pin to over inflated egos or put in plain words the nuances of LGBT politics in Wisconsin.

In 2003, he became the news editor and web master for Quest magazine. Every morning for the last seven years, Fitzpatrick has also helmed daily updates to Quest’s popular QNU news update webpage. QNU has grown to be the one of the most visited LGBT web pages in the state, providing visitors with a mix of LGBT news and gossip from across Wisconsin and around the world.

As Fitzpatrick prepares to step-back from his day-to-day reporting with Quest in order to focus on the increased demands from his job working with those with HIV/AIDS, he took time out to speak with me on his experience as a writer and journalist in Wisconsin, his impressions of Julaine Appling and Tammy Baldwin and much more.

Question: What was the first story you wrote about for the LGBT press in Wisconsin?
The first piece goes back to 1987. It was a story about emotional support volunteers (known elsewhere as AIDS support buddies) needed for CWASG. I also remember sending Ron Geiman stories about the Spring and Fall picnics held by the MNDC in Stevens Point around 1984-85.  

Question: What story was the most interesting/juicy story you wrote about?
Juicy stories? There were several very interesting stories actually. My favorite piece for Wisconsin IN Step was the Scott Evertz AIDS Czar interview. We got the first interview with the gay press nationally. It helped that Scott and I collaborated for several years on Action Wisconsin work.

I also really enjoyed doing the Reality Check columns for Wisconsin IN Step. I think some of my best writing can be found there.

My favorite story for Wisconsin Light was the exposé on Supreme Court candidate Sharon Rose. Very tabloid — very Perez Hilton — but, with class. I only wish I could have added the many of “off the record” comments from the colleagues who truly detested her.

I think the stories I enjoyed doing most for Quest were the GOP sex scandals over the last few years and shedding light on Julaine Appling’s long whispered-about live-in relationship with her college “chum” Diane Westphal.

I hope I will be fortunate enough to continue to follow the Travis Swanson-Bryce Faulkner story as it unfolds. Travis is a progressive activist who lives in Oshkosh. His partner Bryce is the poor guy who is now in the hands of Exodus International — forced there by his fundamentalist mom. The human drama there encapsulates what each of us fights in one way or another on a daily basis, even if we are fortunate enough to live and work in the most gay-friendly environments.

Question: Describe the “sausage making” process of LGBT journalism in Wisconsin. Is there more you know about a story that never gets into print?
I wouldn’t call it sausage making. That suggests writers get to sneak in parts that people would be shocked to see if they saw them in their original form. Writing for our community is more like your first high school dance. You try to get through it as gracefully and professionally as possible without stepping on anyone’s toes.

Unvarnished truth is not pretty - but it is also very subjective. At the heart of all they do, I think Julaine Appling and Ralph Ovadal truly believe in their version of God and truly expect to die, go to their version of heaven and get whatever is the Christian equivalent of the Islamic jihadists’ seventy virgins. My unvarnished truth believes their unvarnished truth is hooey. Who’s right? I think I have scientific evidence on my side. Who wins? Who cares? In a hundred years we won’t even be trivia questions - we’ll be that forgotten.

We all have our agendas. Sorry Fox News, but objectivity is neither fair nor balanced. Unfortunately, telling things exactly as they are will also put a small publisher out of business very quickly. So, much gets left out — or not even reported in the first place.

Question: There is little recognition and even less pay for a LGBT journalist. So, why bother?
I guess I personally bothered because there are stories to tell that needed to be heard (or read I suppose). There is hypocrisy that needs to be exposed. And just every once and awhile it really does make a difference.

Something I have always tried to do rhetorically is de-objectify gay and lesbian people. I really detest the plurals (gays and lesbians). We’re not a species. We’re people with a complex make-up, part of which is our sexuality. Helping readers put our lives in perspective is the main  reason I’ve written all these years.

Question: What is the current state of the LGBT press in Wisconsin?
It is exactly as it always has been. People are getting the gay media they deserve. Thanks to the Internet, Google search, Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, etc. they have more choices now. I’m not sure if a successful business model for a newspaper exists in 2010 — gay or mainstream — Wisconsin or otherwise.

Question: Fairly or unfairly, Quest is seen by some as a Green Bay “bar publication” and that it does not provide serious news coverage. How do you respond to that assertion?
Who cares? As long as you are visible you will always have your detractors. Newspapers and their editors have been about as widely visible as you can get in the gay community. Viscous things have been said about every single gay newspaper or editor since Eldon Murray first mimeographed the GPU News in the 1970s.

That said, Quest is the longest-running, uninterrupted publication in the history of Wisconsin’s gay press. It is the only periodical to consistently have a truly statewide gay focus and readership. To his credit, Mark Mariucci has worked very hard to cultivate good working relationships with many community leaders around the state. That’s why Quest is still around.

Mike Fitzpatrick On:

Tammy Baldwin: Class act. One of the few politicians who consistently tries to find the balance of doing the common good and staying elected. Without Tammy, we wouldn’t have Fair Wisconsin.

Mark Pocan: Excellent political strategist. Without him we wouldn’t have the Wisconsin domestic partnership registry. I wouldn’t cross him though.

Don Hoffman: Had that unique ability to sell snow to the Eskimos. I wonder how Massachusetts is working out.

Jim Doyle: Consummate politician who really gets the gay issue. I fear history won’t be kind.

Mark Mariucci: He’s actually a very sweet, caring guy. He won’t let you print anything else. Just kidding. Or, maybe not.

Louis Weiseberg: Never met the man. He’s apparently publishing a gay Wisconsin newspaper that is striving to be as free of Wisconsin gay content as possible. Only Outbound News did a better job of that and they lasted seven months. Go figure.

William Attewell is the former publisher of Wisconsin IN Step and Q•Voice magazines.
You can follow him on Twitter at
http://twitter.com/williamattewell