Newsweek Puts a Human Face on AIDS (August 2, 1983)

The issue of Newsweek that hit newsstands on August 1, 1983 (cover date of August 8) was notable not because of its AIDS cover story but because two gay men with AIDS appeared on the cover.  The last time a mass market magazine had an openly gay man on its cover was in September 1975 when Air Force Sgt. Leonard Matlovich, Jr. was on TIME Magazine's cover under the headline "I Am a Homosexual".

 

 

Newsweek's story ran five weeks after a TIME cover story about AIDS   headlined "Disease Detectives" and four months after Newsweek's first AIDS cover story, "Epidemic".  What distinguished it from these other stories was that it personalized the disease in hopes of making it more relatable to readers.  Alas, one of the men on the cover, San Francisco AIDS activist Bobbi Campbell (pictured on the left), died of AIDS complications the year after the story ran.  He was 32. 

 

 

 

Comments

[Toddwhitley]

Hi, Rob.
I'm looking for a print copy of this but there's none on backissues.com or eBay.
So...do you know of a transcript of this like one of the others you posted? *thank you*