This series consists of grant proposals, grant related documents, financial accounting records, project publicity, biographical material, notes, correspondence, timelines, and assorted USC/Annenberg School items that document the funding and development of the USC/Annenberg School of Journalism "Project for the Study of Sexual Orientation in the News" (SOIN). The bulk of the series documents aspects of the conceptualization and early development of SOIN's three constituent projects, first in a grant proposal directed to the Ford Foundation, then in notes and correspondence subsequent to the grant award. Also notable is biographical material on Leroy Aarons, as well as three columns Aarons wrote in the mid-1990s forAlternatives, the newsletter of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.

Aarons played a central role in developing and implementing the USC/Annenberg School SOIN project and its three constituent parts: an undergraduate course, Journalism 499, intended to help students "to understand the complex issues around gay men and lesbians as represented in today's media"; the "New Millennium Survey" of the perceptions of gay and lesbian journalists regarding their news organization's coverage of sexual orientation issues; and a newspaper content audit of coverage of gay and lesbian issues appearing in a sample of national newspapers.