Kim Corsaro, longtime publisher of the San Francisco LGBTQ newspaper The Bay Times, passed away unexpectedly at her home in San Francisco on Monday, January 29, 2022. She was 68.
The Bay Times was founded in 1978 as Coming Up, a gay events bar rag founded by a group of lesbians and gay men (notable at a time when the other LGBTQ publications in the City were predominantly run by men). Corsaro took the helm in 1981, eventually renaming it and turning it into a full-fledged local newspaper that would build a reputation for solid investigative reporting.
In 1992, The Bay Times made nationwide headlines when San Francisco Police Chief Richard Hongisto attempted to suppress an issue that was critical of his policies cracking down on protests in the wake of the not guilty verdict for the police officers arrested for beating Rodney King. The cover of the May 1992 issue included an image of Hongisto suggestively holding a police baton next to the headline “Dick’s Cool New Tool.”
Police officers rounded up 2,000 of copies of the issue, and though the paper was free for readers, it still amounted to government suppression of Free Speech. Hongisto claimed he never ordered the papers to be taken, but merely asked officers to collect a “few copies” so that he could show officers how the liberal press was treating him. Reminiscent of King Henry II’s dispute with Thomas Beckett (“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”), Hongisto’s officers read between the lines and attempted to confiscate every copy.
The controversary resulted in the SF Police Commission unanimously voting to fire Hongisto. A Federal court later awarded The Bay Times $5,600 for economic damages, plus another $30,000 to paper’s editor and publisher, as well as legal fees estimated to have been as much as $500,000.
Corsaro sold The Bay Times to Betty Sullivan and Jennifer Viegas in 2011. The following year, she relocated to Cincinnati to work on President Obama’s re-election campaign. Following the successful campaign where Obama was re-elected and also won Ohio for a second time, Corsaro began to experience health issues that would affect the rest of her life. While hospitalized, she was prescribed antibiotics that resulted in permanent damage to her kidneys.
Corsaro remained in Ohio for several years, receiving dialysis treatments several times a week. A botched appendix surgery in 2020 further exacerbated her health issues according to a recent GoFundMe campaign that allowed her to finally return to San Francisco. She was waiting to get a kidney transplant when her time ran out.
In an article published on 48 Hills, Tim Kingston memorialized his boss of eight years:
In an era when gay papers—and I use the word “gay” deliberately—were liberal, at best, Corsaro was downright radical. She took over what was then known as Coming Up, a monthly what’s-coming-up (duh) list of events and turned it into a real gay/lesbian newspaper, with a devotion to local politics and in-depth reporting for the community. As HIV/AIDS decimated us, she was determined to cover the pandemic and do it without abandoning any of the things that made the city a refuge, a home and a center of everything the Christian Right hated. (Hello, artists like Jerome Caja and Gregg Taylor.) And she did it all from a radical queer, lefty perspective.
Tim Kingston on 48 Hills
Please read his tribute for more about Kim Corsaro.
