From: M Petrelis <MPetrelis@aol.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 16:03:41 EST
Subject: WBlade response to new MP letter

[dear friends, the following letter is from the editor of the washington
blade. her email address is ==>> blade forum@aol.com <<==. please send copies
of your responses to that address. --mp]

Dear Michael --

    Your letters offered a great idea for how we can improve our biennial
survey. I wish we had thought of it before this year and regret that you
didn't share it with us earlier, too. It takes quite a while to collect the
information we already report from all the groups. I've heard that you've
learned first hand how time-consuming it is to get their 990 forms, too. By
the time we got around to tackling our biennial survey this year, we had to
scramble to get the survey done and published in 1997.
    The problem with your original letter to the editor was that it
purported to report the salary figures without documentation proving that
you were taking the information from 990 forms. I personally checked the
website you said contained the 990 forms (twice) and did not find them
there. (Even today, they are still not posted.) If they had been, we might
have been able to have run your letter; and we might have been able to use
the forms for our own story as well. But to have delayed the publication of
our survey further -- either until your 990 forms appeared on the website or
until we could obtain the 990 forms ourselves from IRS or the groups --
would have delayed our survey's publication well into 1998 and killed our
ability to make the biennial comparisons.
    Nevertheless, the 990 forms would be a solid addition for our survey
and we will incorporate their use for all future such surveys and
reporting, including next year's biennial survey of national AIDS
organizations.
    As our publisher, Don Michaels, mentioned to you on the phone when you
called recently, if you ever care to share with us copies of the 990 forms
you've already collected on various organizations, that would help expedite
things quite a bit.

Sincerely, 

Lisa Keen
Executive Editor
The Washington Blade