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Media|Troy Masters, Pioneering L.G.B.T.Q. Journalist, Dies at 63
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/20/business/media/troy-masters-dead.html
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He was at the helm of several influential publications, notably Gay City News in New York City and, since 2017, The Los Angeles Blade.
Published Dec. 20, 2024Updated Dec. 21, 2024, 1:05 a.m. ET
Troy Masters, a journalistic champion of L.G.B.T.Q. causes in publications that he founded, published or edited since the early 1990s, most recently The Los Angeles Blade, died on Dec. 11 in his home in West Hollywood, Calif. He was 63.
His sister, Tammy Masters, said his body was found in his apartment by his friend and former partner, Arturo Jiminez, whom she had asked to make a wellness check after not hearing from him for two days. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner determined that the cause was suicide.
Mr. Masters’s career took him from Tennessee, where he grew up, to New York City in the 1980s. He worked for the publications Outweek, QW, LGNY and its successor, Gay City News, before he moved west and started The Los Angeles Blade in 2017 in partnership with The Washington Blade, an L.G.B.T.Q. paper founded in 1969.
“Troy was a pioneer of L.G.B.T.Q. media who was fueled by a passion for advocacy and brought his commitment to justice, truth and best-in-class journalism,” Kevin Naff, the editor of The Washington Blade and an owner of both the Washington and Los Angeles papers, said in an interview.
In the first issue of The Los Angeles Blade, Mr. Masters described the heady promises, and challenges, that his readers faced.
“We are living in a paradigm-shifting moment in real time,” he wrote. “You can feel it. Sometimes it’s overwhelming. Sometimes it’s toxic. Sometimes it’s perplexing, even terrifying. On the other hand, sometimes it’s just downright exhilarating.”
