In the Life, across the country.

The PBS newsmagazine braves the homophobia it documents to celebrate the lives of gay and lesbian Americans

In its seven years on the air, In the Life--public TV's national gay and lesbian newsmagazine--has lived a lifetime. Born as a half-hour variety program, In the Life made headlines before its 1992 debut when, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Bob Dole condemned PBS for sponsoring a "gay Ed Sullivan show." Since then, the New York City-based series, which once appeared fitfully, has grown into a healthy adult, having expanded its reach from six to more than 120 public television stations that air its slate of six all-new, professional-quality hour-long installments a year.

"When we first started, the show was quite a smorgasbord and quite an undertaking," understates executive producer Charles Ignacio, who has been with In the Life since its inception. The initial episodes were filmed on the cheap (as little as $12,000 per half-hour show, compared with $1 million or more for the average network series), featured a chortling studio audience, and were guest-hosted by comics such as Kate Clinton and Lea DeLaria. A sort of public-access Tonight Show cum town meeting, early shows opened with the host du jour's monologue and included (gulp!) panel discussions on everything from gay teens to the New Queer Cinema.

Faced with mixed reviews and anxious to hone its information-as-activism mission, In the Life soon grew into a behind-the-news-desk public affairs program, coveting landmark events such as the 1993 march on Washington. It also added a clown--well, a former clown: Katherine Linton, a New York University theater grad who also graduated from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, became a coanchor after answering an ad in Backstage. "I had no news experience, had never done any on-camera stuff, nothing," she remembers. "And I was so bad that it actually didn't occur to me that hundreds of thousands of people could see it. I learned everything on the job." As her on-camera persona evolved into the approachable and confident presence seen in recent from-the-field reports on the Rev. Jimmy Creech and the Promise Keepers movement, Linton also got involved behind the scenes and became the show's senior producer, a position she left last year.

It was Stonewall 25 that goosed In the Life to get out of the studio and into the streets, where the show found its true calling: on-the-scene reporting on the issues that matter to lesbian and gay audiences and that ought to matter to everyone else. Coverage of the June 1994 celebration of New York City's Stonewall Inn riots ushered in a one-hour magazine format, with segments on New York's cultural festivals and athletes around the country gearing up for that year's Gay Games. "We learned how to get our cameras outside New York and travel around the country to tell stories of gay and lesbian people who weren't necessarily famous," says Ignacio. "It was something we weren't seeing on television."

In the next five years that effort to reflect the cultural and geographical diversity of the gay and lesbian community became the key to the show's success, says Morgan Gwenwald, In the Life's executive director since January. "We did a piece on a gay couple who run an animal sanctuary in West Virginia [in the June-July installment, currently airing]," she notes. "We did an episode on some lesbians who went down to Nicaragua after the hurricane to rebuild homes. These people are out, but they're not working on gay-specific issues. We're crossing those lines because that's the reality of most of our lives."

Another reality is homophobia. Out on the road the show's camera crew isn't always welcomed--their presence having emptied out an auto workers' union meeting in Detroit, for example. And when antigay sentiment runs high, the line between the reporters and their subjects can melt away. "I'll never forget the first gay pride march in Helena, Mont.," recalls Linton. "The people marching were so brave because there were so many protesters yelling at them. They were really violent and drunk and carrying horrible signs. They were driving by, yelling, `We're going to kill you!' and you really felt like they could."

Indeed, In the Life staffers note the value of giving homophobes just enough rope. Covering grassroots efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in Hawaii last October, the show gave time to an antigay Catholic priest and a right-wing member of Congress. "They're amazed that we even want to talk to them," says supervising producer Desireena Almoradie. "[But] the best way to do really responsible activism and journalism is just to have people speak for themselves and see just how incredibly twisted these people's ideas are."

The show has also been able to document the valuable activism of the ordinary life lived honestly. When a crew traveled to Iowa to cover the stow of two gay foster parents, Linton relates, "we kept hearing [straight people say], `Oh, those guys are doing such a good job.' And that town has only one stoplight."

In the Life sees only green lights ahead: a monthly format by the end of 2000 and, hopefully, the support of local PBS stations in the remaining 20 states where the show is still deemed too controversial to broadcast. "For the first time this June, we were shown in New Orleans," notes director of communications John Catania. "It took us six years to get on in Orlando, but six months ago their local station actually pledged us, and they were deluged with [supportive] calls. Obviously, there are viewers out there that are hungry for this kind of information."

"There's no question that things are so much better from when I started with In the Life," says Linton. "You feel the difference. People's attitudes are opening up."

Maynard writes for Details and the online magazine Mr. Showbiz.

For more information on In the Life and the TV stations that air it, visit www.advocate.com