San Francisco Sentinel
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| Type | Online newspaper |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1974 |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | 285 Shipley Street, San Francisco, California United States |
| Website | www |
The San Francisco Sentinel is an online newspaper serving the LGBT communities of the San Francisco Bay Area. Originally a weekly print periodical, the Sentinel covers local San Francisco politics, news and social events, and international news of interest to the gay community.
Several San Francisco newspapers have held the name San Francisco Sentinel. One operated in the 1860s; another was started in 1890 by West-Indies-born Oxford-educated newspaper editor Robert Charles O'Harra Benjamin and his business manager partner L. B. Stephens. This second Sentinel focused on news and opinion of interest to African-American readers.
The modern San Francisco Sentinel began in 1974 as a weekly periodical covering the gay community of San Francisco. It was published by Charles Lee Morris, an activist for gay rights and a local political leader. Morris produced the Sentinel as a weekly periodical paid for by subscriptions and advertisements. It appeared in magazine form with a cover illustration rather than articles in columns on the front. In 1975, Morris hired Randall H. "Randy" Alfred as news editor. Alfred wrote the column "Waves from the Left", and he responded to the first hate crime legislation passing in California by writing, "The days are gone when we can be taken for granted. We are tired of shabby, liberal gestures." Alfred left in 1977 to work for a competing gay newspaper, the San Francisco Bay Times.
In October 1980, the newspaper published a guest editorial written by U.S. presidential candidate John B. Anderson. Anderson wrote that, if elected, he would order the cessation of discrimination in the federal government based on sexual orientation. At the time, the Sentinel boasted a local circulation of 17,000, but the story was picked up by the Associated Press and United Press International wire services and printed in various papers across the country. Publisher Morris said that he thought this was "the first time a major presidential candidate" had written for a gay-oriented newspaper.
Morris moved to Denver in 1984 and died of AIDS in 1986 at the age of 46.
The paper went through several owners, including gay rights activist William "Bill" Beardemphl who bought it in 1981. At the time, Beardemphl was living in Geyserville, California, with his longtime partner John DeLeon. Beardemphl had earlier written a column—"From the Left"—for the Bay Area Reporter, a gay community newspaper founded in 1971 by Bob Ross. Managing Editor Gary Schwiekhart wrote that Beardemphl and Ross, both accomplished chefs, "deeply despised one another, both journalistically and culinarily, and frequently used their newspapers to launch vicious personal attacks" on each other.
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