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GLAD honors Stephen Mindich
Banner Daily Update posted Mon. July 23
By Alison Cashin
Banner Correspondent
PROVINCETOWN — Stephen Mindich has printed millions of pages in his 40-year career publishing award-winning, cutting-edge newspapers and magazines. But one of his most prized publications is an eight-page booklet he printed in the mid-1980s.
The booklet was a guide to safe sex, and included a condom and an oral dam with instructions for use. Mindich tucked it into the pages of his weekly newspaper, The Boston Phoenix, at a time when mainstream media were just beginning to talk about HIV/AIDS — and still shied away from talking in practical terms about sex.
But Mindich didn’t flinch. He brainstormed the idea and cold-called the CEO of Trojan Condoms, talking the company into donating more than 125,000 condoms for the project. And, as the inevitable controversy surrounding the guide itself became a news story, more and more people learned about safer sex.
As publisher and chairman of The Phoenix Media/Communications Group (PM/CG), Mindich has built a career and a multi-state media company by taking risks to advocate for and support issues and causes he believes in. Later this month the Boston-based legal organization, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), will honor Mindich for his early and ongoing commitment to the LGBT community and to the arts, at GLAD’s annual Summer Party in Provincetown.
Content across Mindich’s media outlets has been ahead of the curve since he began Boston After Dark, a four-page arts and entertainment guide for Boston-area college students, in 1966. This forward-thinking mindset, he says, is “part of our DNA.”
Boston After Dark became The Boston Phoenix, which early on covered HIV/AIDS and published LGBT-specific content. Mindich’s affiliated radio station, WFNX, in 1992 debuted one of the first LGBT programs in the country. One in Ten was a once-a-week, three-and-a-half hour “radio magazine” featuring news, entertainment reports, music and call-in discussions.
Mindich for the past decade has brought an equal level of commitment to the Provincetown arts community. After he and his wife, Judge Maria Lopez, bought a home in Provincetown 10 years ago, he became involved with the Provincetown International Film Festival, and later joined the boards of directors of The Provincetown Theater and the Fine Arts Work Center, where he continues to work on their capital campaign.
For more on this story, see the July 26 Provincetown Banner.
[Editor’s note: Alison Cashin is a writer and researcher who works at GLAD.]
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Jul 19th, 2007