Jad Abumrad

It means that it's an appropriate story to publish.

But I do think like why should the journalist be the only ones to decide what is newsworthy?

It's not – like why is it that then journalists, you just pick up a notepad and a pencil and all of a sudden you have so much more power to say what's sayable than anybody else?

This is producer Tracy Hunt, who was in on the interview.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, it feels like he was sacrificed from all sides, actually.

Yeah, it feels like there's this one kind of man in the middle, and then there are all these forces around him, these larger-than-life forces, like the White House, there's the gay movement, there's the freedom of the press, and all these people are sort of batting around all these enormous and important abstractions, and then in the middle of it, there's this guy that just is trampled by all of them.

And so what ends up happening to him in the end?

Well, I'll tell you right after we take a quick break.

This is Radiolab.

I'm Jad Abumrad here with Robert Krawitsch.

Getting back now to our story from producer Elasif Nasser about Oliver Sippel, who, as we heard before the break, tried to sue a series of newspapers for outing him, lost that suit.

What happened to him after that?

Well, apparently some people in the gay community during and after the lawsuit felt that he was trying to go back in the closet.

So they sort of turned their backs on him.

Surprisingly, he was friends with Harvey Milk till the end.

Like when Harvey Milk was assassinated—

Oliver Sipple went to his funeral and he did have one brother, George Sr., who stuck by him throughout.

But his parents did not and they never fully accepted the fact that he was gay and –