Schmalz's reporting on AIDS includes in-depth profiles of well-known people with HIV/AIDS like Mary Fisher,[3] Magic Johnson,[4] and Larry Kramer.

His work is recounted in the December 2015 book and radio documentary "Dying Words: The AIDS Reporting of Jeff Schmalz and How It Transformed The New York Times", by Samuel G. Freedman.

Later, Schmalz worked as a metropolitan news reporter and a regional editor before being named chief of the paper's Albany bureau in 1986, where he chronicled the early years of New York Governor Mario Cuomo's rise to prominence.

In October of that year, Schmalz, while still in the closet to his bosses at the Times, wrote an article about how AIDS discrimination affected the lives of the Ray brothers in Arcadia, Florida.

In June 1992, he wrote his first post-diagnosis article about the disease, a profile piece on dermatologist Marcus Conant, one of the first U.S. doctors to diagnose and treat AIDS back in 1981.

On December 20, 1992, Schmalz wrote a first-person story for The New York Times titled, "Covering AIDS and Living with It: A Reporter's Testimony.

"[14] and President Bill Clinton mentioned Schmalz and the article in his December 1, 1993 address on World AIDS Day at Georgetown University Medical Center.

In addition to Mary Fisher, Magic Johnson, and Larry Kramer, Schmalz profiled many famous people who had HIV and/or AIDS, some who ultimately died from the disease, including journalist Randy Shilts, child advocate and activist Elizabeth Glaser, writer Harold Brodkey, attorney Thomas Stoddard, and AIDS and environmental activist Bob Hattoy.