Podcast Revisits Outspoken Gay Rights Journalist Tom Cassidy '72
By Doug Cook
Tom Cassidy '72 at CNN
“CNN business anchor Tom Cassidy kept his private life separate from his public life. Three decades ago he had to. But then he was diagnosed with AIDS.” So begins the introduction of a 1990 podcast on Tom Cassidy ’72, who bequeathed money to Bowdoin for a lectureship that brings prominent reporters to campus each year. Cassidy died in 1991 at age 41.
Among previous Tom Cassidy Lecturers are Scott Allen ’83 (Bowdoin Globe Spotlight Team), David Brooks (New York Times and PBS), Lou Dobbs (CNN and Fox News), Andy Revkin (New York Times), Andy Serwer ’81 (Fortuneand Yahoo Finance), and Linda Wertheimer (NPR).
Eric Marcus, the host of Making Gay History, first interviewed Cassidy in 1990, and recently reposted that interview. Marcus writes, “Unlike some gay men diagnosed with AIDS whose high-profile careers led them to disappear from public when they became seriously ill, Tom Cassidy chose the opposite course. He decided to bring his experience into the living rooms of viewers through a three-part television series…”
