NOVEMBER 2009 (Vol. 11, No. 8)
A Publication of Rivendell Media

Celebrating 10 years of serving our community of journalists

SPECIAL EDITION from the National Equality March in Washington, D.C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Late-Breaking News: Washington Blade no more: Window Media newspapers in D.C., Atlanta and Florida shut down
Feature: LGBT media march on Washington: Reporters and editors find national and local angles to cover D.C. event
Sidebar: LGBT media take on Obama’s HRC keynote address
In The News: The Advocate fights off death-knell rumors; Regent Media unveils new Gay.com; Logo and Subaru drive up their partnership with new campaign
Pressing Questions: Lou Chibarro of the Washington Blade
Letters to the Editor: What the death of the Washington Blade means to LGBT media; Window Media thugs and bullies led to the closure of the Washington Blade
Transitions and Milestones
Bulletin Board
Staff
Contributors to This Issue
Contact Us

The shocking news spread like wildfire. The Window Media empire had finally collapsed – its major stockholding company filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy at the same time the company shuttered its flagship publication, the Washington Blade, as well as Atlanta-based Southern Voice, the South Florida Blade, and gay male entertainment and night-life guides David magazine (Atlanta) and 411 Magazine (Southeast Florida).

Many employees at all five publications learned the news Monday morning, Nov. 16, when they showed up for work. Laura Douglas-Brown, longtime editor of Southern Voice, told reporters that she found the office door lock had been changed, along with a note posted to the door saying the paper had been shut down.

The note read: "It is with GREAT regret that we must inform you that effective immediately, the operations of Window Media, LLC and United Media, LLC have closed down. Please return to this office on WEDNESDAY, November 18th, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. to collect personal belongings and to receive information on your separation stipulations. Please bring boxes and/or containers that will allow you to collect all your personal belongings at one time. Regretfully, [Window Media co-presidents] Steve Myers and Mike Kitchens."

Myers also served as chief financial officer for Window Media, as well as publisher of Southern Voice and David Magazine. Kitchens also served as chief operating office for Window Media, as well as publisher of South Florida Blade and 411 Magazine.

Avalon Equity, the majority stockholder of Window Media, has been under receivership with the U.S. Small Business Administration since 2008. Avalon Equity has since declared bankruptcy.

The Washington Blade recently celebrated its 40th anniversary (see Pressing Questions below). Southern Voice has been publishing for 21 years.

Despite the bad news, the fate and future of the former Window Media publications remain in a state of flux, with Blade staffers scrambling to keep a weekly publication up and running in the nation’s capital. Already, they have established a web page www.savetheblade.com.

Similarly, Southern Voice founder Chris Cash and editor Laura Douglas-Brown have established www.savesovo.com. According to Advocate.com, this is an effort to raise funds and "relaunch an online news publication with a print companion under a different name, since the duo do not own rights to the original Southern Voice title.”

Advocate.com also reported Nov. 18 that a “new iteration” of the former Blade would be up and running on Friday, Nov. 20, under the name the D.C. Agenda. As former Blade editor Kevin Naff told Advocate.com, "We're launching a modest print publication on Friday, and the plan is to be on a full-scale printing press in two weeks for the December 4 issue."

Like its predecessor, the D.C. Agenda will be a weekly covering local Beltway and national news. A new website will be online soon, according to Naff.

And more good news came out of Florida where staffers at 411 Magazine and South Florida Blade have been scooped up by Multimedia Platforms, LLC. The former 411 Magazine “will be known as Mark’s List Magazine and [South Florida Blade] will become a biweekly publication with a name to be announced in a few days,” wrote Sheri Elfman, editor of 411 Magazine, in a letter posted at http://frontpage.jumponmarkslist.com/MSFL/2009/111609.htm.

“There are two different issues here,” said Paul Schindler, editor-in-chief of New York City-based Gay City News. “One is the loss of terrific publications, which – in a very difficult environment for paid, professional journalists who have the time and resources to do what blogs cannot and often don't even try to do – is very detrimental, particularly at such an important time for our community.”

The other matter, he said, “is an example of bad business decisions, based on the same sort of leverage-to-the-hilt mentality that is plaguing our economy everywhere. Chris Crain, William Waybourn, and David Unger's Avalon Equity put too heavy a debt burden on this company – pure and simple. They took high-performing properties that were thriving and imperiled them with unthinking financing schemes. Thus, valuable community assets were squandered.”

In other Washington Blade-related news, a Falls Church, Va., publisher has confirmed that his company had won a bid to buy and perpetuate Washington Blade prior to its shutdown.

In response to media inquiries and an apparent information blackout by the SBA, Nicholas F. Benton, owner of the Falls Church News-Press, a Washington, D.C.-area weekly, confirmed on Nov. 17 that his corporation, Benton Communications, Inc. had won a bid in September – from parties that included the SBA – to obtain the assets of the Washington Blade from its bankrupt parent company for purposes of a seamless perpetuation of the newspaper. The Blade was closed without Benton's advance knowledge on Nov. 16, he said through a press statement.

Benton also said he regrets that the negotiations to complete the transfer of ownership failed to be completed, and that as a result he is unable to carry the Blade forward.

Reached by telephone, Benton said of the former Blade staffers, “Many of those people are my friends and I remain willing to answer my phone and wish them the very best. And I will be looking forward to helping in any way they want me to.”

WASHINGTON – It was the fifth LGBT march on the nation’s capital in three decades with estimates of roughly 200,000 participants. And the brave new digital media world enabled LGBT reporters and commentators as well as bloggers and citizen journalists to employ new technology in covering activities over this past Columbus Day weekend, Oct. 10-12.

For the Washington Blade, the National Equality March (NEM) was both a local and national story. The Blade had three reporters, a photographer and videographer on hand, said editor in chief Kevin Naff.

Washington’s other local LGBT publication, Metro Weekly, also treated the NEM as local and national news. Metro’s preview issue (Oct. 8) ran a cover story, “The Road to Washington,” featuring activists from all over the country in short profiles, explaining their motivations for marching.

Other major-city LGBT weeklies relied on Keen News Services, Washington-based freelancer Bob Roehr, and freelancer Rex Wockner for front-page, big-picture stories.

For the Blade’s Naff, “It was nice to see mainstream coverage of our community,” he said, referring to CNN, C-Span, network broadcast TV and major daily newspapers. Still, what readers “got out of LGBT media,” Naff added, “is this idea of ‘incrementalism’ versus ‘all-or-nothing’ strategy that is being debated in the community right now.”

Incrementalism – or years of step-by-step progress in advancing equal rights for LGBT Americans – includes, for example, state and local advocacy of non-discrimination protections. On the other hand, Equality Across America, the organizing group behind the march, perhaps best expresses the more recent “all-or-nothing” approach. The message is unambiguous. As the theme of the march stated, “Full federal equality for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states."

Granted, “It’s an insiders’ conversation that some of us are having among friends,” said Naff. “I am assuming those conversations are going on at national gay rights organizations.” Yet, "the mainstream is not covering what is so hot a topic in our community, and on our pages we did stories on [whether] incrementalism working or not working.”

Unlike previous marches in 1979, 1987, 1993 and 2000, the NEM relied primarily on social media networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to publicize the event and do grassroots organizing. Operating on a budget of $250,000, most observers agree the march was a success – proof of Internet 2.0’s prowess as an organizing tool for a major national LGBT show of force in the nation’s capital in a relatively short (three-month) time period.

Like the planning of other marches, NEM produced controversy and dissent. Late in August, for instance, activist Steve Ault penned an op-ed circulated widely in LGBT media that chastised organizers, including longtime gay rights activist David Mixner, who initially called for the march last spring.

“Who speaks for and represents the community is always a hot topic and is no small matter,” Ault wrote, taking to task organizers for its “top-down” rather than bottom-up “old-fashion grassroots organizing,” which in previous marches, he said, included a “national steering committee” consisting of “delegates elected at regional meetings” that “ensured representation from all parts of the country while also mandating gender parity and people of color.”

Ault’s piece, originally written for New York-based Gay City News, drew “a mixed response,” said editor Paul Schindler. “But the most common response was gratitude to Steve for raising the issues and the history he did.”

By early September, however, blog sites such as Andy Towle’s site (www.Towleroad.com with a news-breaking exclusive) and Bil Browning’s site (www.Bilerico.com), reported that initial concerns and criticisms had faded. “Growing support for the National Equality March: 140 new LGBT activists and allies sign on,” blared a Bilerico headline (Sept. 1, 2009) for a piece filed by Waymon Hudson.

Until the end, openly gay Congressman Barney Frank remained critical, calling the demonstration “useless” in comments he made as a guest on Sirius XM Satellite Radio OutQ’s “The Michelangelo Signorile Show” on Oct. 7. OutQ also provided extensive live coverage of the march beginning on Sunday afternoon.

Still, all the news did not come out of Washington. Regional publications searched for local angles to the national event – and found them. San Francisco’s Bay Area Reporter (BAR), for example, while doing stories before the actual march, also “spoke regularly with Kip Williams, a San Francisco resident and co-director of the march,” said editor Cynthia Laird. Even in November, the NEM made news when BAR reported that Williams and march co-director Robin McGehee resigned from Equality Across America over some disagreement with Cleve Jones and others on the EAA committee.

“I wrote a front-page story on that because it was surprising that less than a month after the march, the organization seemed to be falling apart,” Laird explained.

Some reporters were inventive. Michael K. Lavers, Mid-Atlantic editor for Edge publications (and a Press Pass Q contributor), embedded himself in the Queens Borough contingent, riding the bus from New York City to D.C. and back, and writing about the experience. “I wanted to provide a variety of perspectives and opinions on how activists on the ground really felt,” he said.

North Carolina-based Q-Notes followed a similar local angle. Unable to be in Washington, editor Matt Comer hired a freelance reporter and photographer. “Our report on the march zeroed in on Carolina folks attending the event and their thoughts, feelings and reactions,” he said.

Dallas Voice news editor John Wright reported on two Dallas area activists: Mark Reed, who served on the 10-person executive committee, and Laura McFerrin, historian for the event. Dallas Voice coverage also included reporting on Cleve Jones, a longtime activist from San Francisco and a lead march organizer who appeared at the local Pride celebration.

In a particularly moving “Reflections on the March” piece, Wright collected commentary from local activists, including this from Reed: “Probably the most memorable moment for me was while boarding the airplane back to Dallas, I received a call from Stacey Simmons, a person whom I worked closely with on Facebook and Twitter promoting the march. She is Robin McGehee’s girlfriend, and they had a message on their hotel room phone from a teenager from Toronto. The message was similar to one Harvey Milk received, a day after being elected, from a kid from Altoona, Pa. The caller wanted to thank Robin for all her efforts for organizing the march and how he now had hope for things to be different and society to change. After three suicide attempts, he’s no longer trying to take his life. Milk’s famous quote was, ‘You have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right.’ This march gave him hope.”

WASHINGTON – More than 200 journalists and bloggers requested credentials to cover the event. And yet the Human Rights Campaign granted only 60 press passes to their 13th annual gala and fundraiser, with GLBT media fully represented in the mix.

After all, security was tight, LGBT expectations on the rise, and the dinner booked star power – President Barack Obama, who was the keynote speaker.

Those in the room wondered: Would Obama say or do anything new to advance gay equality? Such was the pre-speech buzz. Sure enough, Obama’s words wowed the 3,000 attendees on hand in Washington’s convention center as thousands of Americans viewed the president’s appearance live on C-SPAN. Even though Obama had nothing new to add, LGBT media had plenty to cover that evening, Oct. 10.

“We blogged the dinner live,” said Bil Browning, founder and publisher of The Bilerico Project (www.Bilerico.com). Browning explained how traditional and mainstream media converged that night. “I happened to be sitting next to a lady from the New York Times,” he said.

The Times reporter’s curiosity, Browning said, prompted her to ask, “What are you doing?” The rest is history. “One of our [blog] readers was quoted in the Times about what he thought of Obama’s speech.”

And just how did live blogging work? “We put the program up in a box,” Browning said. “Serving as the host, I approved the comments” that came in from our viewers as well as from “others watching from home who were able to chime in.” Browning added, “I was able to give the reaction to the room.”

More traditional LGBT media outlets also provided unique takes on the HRC dinner. “For our community,” said Washington Blade editor-in-chief Kevin Naff, “we reminded people that this was not the first time that a sitting president addressed an HRC audience.” In fact, Bill Clinton was the first. The Blade’s coverage also pointed out that Obama offered nothing new. “It was basically a regurgitation of what he said a year ago. Those were elements not heard in mainstream coverage,” Naff said.

In reporting and commentary, LGBT journalists made decisions either to cover the dinner and Obama’s keynote address separately or include its mention in coverage of the entire Columbus Day weekend. Bilerico, the Blade, and Keen News Services (KNS) coverage opted for the former. Writing for a variety of outlets, Keen provided detailed reporting – and analysis of the text of Obama’s speech – as well as reactions from HRC dinner attendees.

“The content of President Barack Obama's speech to an audience of LGBT supporters on the eve of the 2009 March on Washington offered nothing new,” Keen News reported. “… If there was anything new in the speech itself, it was the prominence President Obama gave to the fact that many in the LGBT community are parents.”

Altogether, “The number one complaint [of the HRC speech] that I heard,” said Browning, is that “it’s the same old song and dance – just a bunch of promises.”

— Chuck Colbert

(Editor’s note: Press Pass Q reporter Chuck Colbert, a contributor to Keen News Service, reported on the National Equality March, and with Keen, covered the president's speech at the annual HRC dinner for Keen News Service.)

It is not quite clear what to call the online exchange between Queerty.com and a top official at Regent Media. And yet “dust-up” is as good a term as any to describe what transpired over Queerty’s reporting and Regent Media’s response and rebuttal to news that the Advocate had cut staff dramatically and would cease to publish as a glossy stand-alone monthly newsmagazine.

Here’s how Queerty put out the word (http://www.queerty.com/massive-layoffs-at-a-bleeding-regenthere-media-advocate-folding-into-insert-20091030/):

“Just days after a glowing profile in the Dallas Morning News of [Regent board member] Paul Colichman and [chairman of the board] Stephen Jarchow's Regent/Here Media comes word from inside the company: it's a sinking ship.” Regent/Here Media is the parent company of the Advocate.

The post continues, “Multiple sources tell Queerty [that] Colichman and Jarchow … have gutted the Advocate's masthead in an attempt to stem the mag's bleeding cash reserves. A money loser when Here Media bought it from PlanetOut Partners, they've been unable to turn things around since acquiring the title.”

According to Queerty, more than 10 staffers were let go, including the magazine's managing editor Matthew Breen and 15-year veteran John Jameson, along with art director Craig Edwards, associate photo editor Meghan Quinn and copy editor Teresa Morrison. Associate publisher Mike Phelps and production manager Brian Lindsey were also allegedly let go.

Additionally, Queerty reported that the Advocate would cease as a stand-alone magazine, instead becoming an insert of the company's fashion and lifestyle glossy, Out.

But Stephen Macias, a Regent Media, LLC, senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and public relations, shot back on Oct. 31 in a letter apparently addressed to Queerty editorial director David Hauslaib, first posted on the blog Kennethinthe(212).com (http://jump.kennethinthe212.com/2009/10/response-from-adovate.html).

“The Advocate staff has not been ‘gutted,’” Macias wrote, confirming the staff cuts at the Advocate, at the same time saying the magazine would continue publishing as a monthly. Macias stopped short, however, of disputing Queerty’s claim that the Advocate would cease to be a stand-alone magazine.

However, Macias has confirmed to Press Pass Q that the Advocate will be "delivered as a separate publication with OUT" magazine "in the same mailing,” not as a pull out section.

Meanwhile, at least one question remains for gay media and LGBT media professionals: What can be made of cutbacks at the Advocate – and beyond – during current challenging times for news industry?

“I don’t feel the need or desire to bash anybody in the current climate,” said gay media observer Bob Witeck, chief executive officer of Witeck-Combs Communications, a public relations and marketing firm based in Washington. “In the current climate all media companies need to figure out [a profitable business model].” Right now, he added, “I am willing to give [Regent and the Advocate] the benefit of the doubt.”

Cathy Renna, managing partner of Renna Communications, a public relations and education consulting firm, agreed. “The Advocate has to streamline because of the economy and continue to reorganize in a way that keeps them profitable and effectively move more of the content online.”

Macias offered his perspective. "LGBT media need to run [their] businesses like any other media business [in the] 21st century," he said, employing "multiple platforms and making sure that we are connecting with people in the different ways they are consuming media. For advertisers, Macias added, "We need to make sure they understand that LGBT media, through its quality content, has access to quality consumers."

— Chuck Colbert

Regent Media unveils new Gay.com

After months of hype, Regent Media has unveiled the new – and improved – Gay.com.

The LGBT media conglomerate launched the new site on Sept. 28. It includes revamped chat rooms and user profiles. Gay.com also features video content with pop culture, political, travel and other channels. And it streams news from the Advocate.

“We’re putting our content online to connect a premium online experience,” Stephen Macias, executive vice president and general manager of Regent Media, told Press Pass Q. “It’s a very complex market online with folks meeting and different opportunities folks have across the Internet.”

Macias further pointed out he hopes Gay.com’s networking features, which Regent Media has loosely based on Facebook and other web sites, will allow users to connect with other LGBT people.

“We have people around the country who still live in places where it’s not easy to be gay,” he said. “This is a really safe way for folks to gather and for advertisers to find a particular group. It’s kind of a win-win.”

Gay.com’s relaunch comes nearly a year after its former parent company, San Francisco-based PlanetOut, merged with Here Networks LLC and Regent Entertainment Media. A decline in advertising revenue and increasing debt had caused PlanetOut to struggle in the years leading up to the merger, but the new Gay.com comes roughly a year and a half after Regent Media bought the Advocate, Out and Alyson Books, all former PlanetOut properties, for $6 million.

Macias said an upgraded Gay.com will debut by the end of the year. He declined to provide specifics, but Macias remained optimistic the site will continue to do well – and especially help Regent Media tap into a younger and more Web-savvy audience. “We have to keep updating and upgrading,” he said.

— Michael K. Lavers

Logo and Subaru drive up their partnership with new campaign

Subaru of America and cable channel Logo have announced a new advertising campaign that both companies contend builds upon their long-standing partnership.

The campaign’s web site describes the Logo Legacy Campaign as “your gateway to a destination about what it means to Build a Legacy.” Its main component is a series of profiles of gays and lesbians in media, entertainment and advertising who will discuss “what Legacy means to them. These three-minute spots, which will feature actor Cheyenne Jackson, comedian Sandra Valls, Jamie Lauren of “Top Chef” and others, will air on Logo over the coming months.

The Logo Legacy Campaign launched in September. Amy Wigler, vice president of marketing for Logo, told Press Pass Q that it remains a natural fit for the network and the car manufacturer to work together. “Subaru was one of our charter advertisers,” Wigler said. “They’ve been a fantastic partner for us.”

Wigler said partnering with Subaru to launch this campaign made sense. “Subaru is a company that has truly made a name for itself in the gay community,” she said. “It has done the right things, so talking about its legacy is a no-brainer.”

Logo currently has around 200 advertisers, but the network has suffered under the economic recession. “CBS News on Logo” aired its final episode in August after the faltering economy prompted CBS not to renew the half-hour news program. Other media observers have questioned the quality of the programs that continue to air on Logo.

Wigler acknowledged the recession has had an impact on Logo and its many advertisers. She remains optimistic, however, that Subaru and others who continue to pay for spots that air on the network will continue to do so in their ongoing efforts to target LGBT consumers.

“We’re really in a unique position in the marketplace,” Wigler said. “No one has been unscathed because of the recession, but because of our hyper-niche market, we’ve been able to weather this well. We have this fierce brand loyalty.”

— Michael K. Lavers

Despite the latest news concerning Window Media, the Washington Blade celebrated its 40th anniversary last month. Founded in 1969, shortly after the Stonewall Rebellion in New York City, the Blade saw many changes, including name changes from Gay Blade to The Blade to Washington Blade, and expansion from a single letter-sized mimeographed sheet to a monthly to a weekly tabloid. Its website www.washblade.com draws 250,000 readers per month. At its zenith of circulation numbers, the Blade’s print run topped 40,000. And yet in recent years, the paper cut back to 23,000.

Far longer than any other Blade staffer, 60-year-old senior reporter Lou Chibarro has investigated and reported more than a career’s share of interesting stories, always finding a gay angle. Whether the institutional memory of the publication or the Helen Thomas of the gay press, Chibarro is on the "gay beat," both locally and nationally.

PPQ: What do you think was your biggest story, either locally or nationally?

Chibarro: It’s hard to select any one big story when looking back over so many years. In the category of national stories, the one that comes to mind is a 1992 story about two gay men who agreed to confirm on the record – after remaining silent for several years – that then-Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia fired them from his staff in the early 1980s because he believed their sexual orientation could make them susceptible to blackmail.

The story broke shortly after Bill Clinton was elected president and Nunn was seriously being considered as Clinton’s pick for Secretary of Defense. The New York Times and Washington Post immediately picked up the story, citing the Blade as the original source. News surfaced a short time later that Clinton chose not to select Nunn as Secretary of Defense. Some sources close to the new administration said the revelations about Nunn’s firing of the gay men was a factor in Clinton’s decision not to name him to the DOD post.

PPQ: What have been the biggest changes that you have seen in the development, maturing and expansion of LGBT media?

Chibarro: I believe the two biggest changes that have had a profound effect in developing and expanding the reach of the LGBT media have been the steady increase in advertising revenue from non-gay businesses beginning in the mid 1970s through the 1990s, and the advent of the Internet from the 1990s to the present.

For the Blade, increased ad revenue from many prominent local and some national advertisers enabled it to expand its staff and hire qualified professional reporters and editors who helped make the Blade a highly respected news organization within the LGBT community and the Washington metropolitan area.

The decision by businesses to embrace many LGBT publications as a site for advertising reflected the growing acceptance of gay people and the LGBT community in American society. In recent years, the Blade, like other mainstream print media, has encountered a drop in ad revenue due to evolving changes in the news business brought out largely by the Internet. Like all other media outlets, the LGBT media must now grapple with this shift in readership from print to online media.

PPQ: What do you enjoy most about your role as a reporter?

Chibarro: As someone who is curious by nature, I’ve always enjoyed the process of gathering information about something new and informing others about what I’ve found. And as a so-called political junkie, with a degree in political science, I find the workings of government and politics to be interesting and fascinating. Some people have wondered why I haven’t become bored with covering the “gay” for so many years. I always respond by saying the “gay beat” cuts across a vast array of subject areas and governmental and non-governmental institutions.

In reporting on LGBT rights issues, I’ve covered the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, presidential election campaigns, the military, national security matters, the police beat, murder trials, more lawsuits than I can shake a stick at, and the full range of scientific and medical issues related to AIDS, to name only some of the areas that I’ve covered.

PPQ: How do you see the future of gay media with all the changes, especially with the digital revolution?

Chibarro: Like the non-gay news media, the direction and shape the gay media will take in the near and long-term future remains unclear. Obviously, the digital revolution is having a profound effect on the media as a whole, with the emphasis rapidly shifting from print to an online vehicle for transmitting the news. The financial underpinning of the gay media – like the non-gay media – traditionally has been advertising revenue. I’m reasonably confident that the shakeup period we’re in now, where print publications, including the New York Times and Washington Post, succeeds in finding ways to offset a loss in print advertising by expanding online revenue sources.

Speaking personally, the Internet has vastly expanded my ability as a reporter to gather information quickly in a wide range of areas, especially public records. Although this information gathering revolution, from Google to online courthouse and government agency record sources, has helped everyone in the news business, it has had a disproportionately greater benefit for smaller publications which, in the past, did not have the budget or the staff to support traveling to locations to physically retrieve the information now available online.

For those of us in LGBT media, it was a sad week. Our brothers and sisters who work in a variety of LGBT newspapers run by Window Media showed up at their offices and discovered that their publications had closed, including the Washington Blade, Atlanta's Southern Voice, David magazine, 411 magazine and the South Florida Blade. That alone is a lot of employees, but in recent months the same company also closed down Genre magazine and the online-only Houston Voice, and it or members of its management had connections with HX, which also folded.

To say this is the biggest failure in LGBT-media history is an understatement. That said, what does it say about LGBT media? The short answer: nothing.

While media outlets in general are going through changes, there are some basic publishing lessons that can be learned from this, and in some ways it even makes LGBT media stronger.

The first rule of local LGBT publishing is to remain relevant in your community. And the way to do that is not to be afraid of taking positions and allowing free discussion in your publication - even if it opposes your position. Don't sugarcoat the news. If an LGBT organization is not doing its job or something is not on the up and up, it's the media's job to expose it. Make local news your priority, news that only you will be publishing. And don't be afraid of controversy. Remember the basics of news in every story: who, what, when, where, how and why.

Now to the business side. If you do your journalism correctly, you will be relevant, trusted and a necessity to your community. That brings readers, which brings advertisers, which pays the bills. Your first line of advertisers should be the community itself, which should support its publication of record. Next are the gay-friendly and non-gay businesses in gay neighborhoods and the non-gay businesses frequented by the LGBT community. And once that is in line, it should cover your bottom line. Any national advertising that comes your way is the cream of the business.

Of course, you still need basic business practices and leadership to bring it together. Here's a possible example of how the above rules applied to the Washington Blade. Window Media and their other partners began their course of destruction when Chris Crane discredited and cheapened what was one of the nation's leading LGBT publications (he even included a "Bitch Session" column and hired a former escort as a political columnist). That led to a decline in advertising, which resulted in cutting ad rates to undercut competition.

At the same time, David Unger, head of Window Media, went on a publication-buying spree with money guaranteed by the Small Business Administration. They had a sinking ship and went further in debt.

When Crane was let go/resigned, the Blade began to regain its stature but, still under Unger's leadership it continued to buy other publications and cut benefits. Various business arrangements with other publications, such as HX, entered the Blade world. Who owned what became blurred. Lack of trust from readers and advertisers, a possible fight among partners and an ensuing host of lawsuits spelled the end.

This cocktail of failure was about Window Media and Window Media alone. It affects the employees of those publications and the cities they serve, but not any other local publications anywhere in the nation. And there's going to be a happy ending. Already the former staff of the Blade is forming a new publication for D.C. It will rise like a phoenix, with other LGBT media around the nation in full support. Likewise, it seems one of the Window executives is forming a new publication to serve the area previously covered by the South Florida Blade. This all shows growth in gay media.

After you take care of your local base, there's more good news for LGBT media at the national level. Rivendell Media CEO (and Press Pass Q publisher) Todd Evans tells me that his national sales to local LGBT media for December appear to be the strongest of recent years, and he predicts even higher sales in 2010.

Media, whether it be newspapers, TV, radio, movies, magazines or the Internet, continuously evolve. Our job in media - gay and non-gay - is to continue to evolve and serve our communities. If we do that, keeping an eye on change, we'll remain relevant and an asset to our communities.

Mark Segal
Publisher
Philadelphia Gay News
Philadelphia

(The above ran in the Nov. 19, 2009, issue of Philadelphia Gay News.)

Window Media thugs and bullies led to the closure of the Washington Blade

Just as the Washington Blade turned 40, it came face to face with the grim reaper. The cause of death, however, was not the Internet or an economic advertising drain - it was corporate greed and mismanagement. The corporate parent, Window Media-HX-Avalon Equity (yes, it's confusing), has been on a gay newspaper-killing spree (IN Newsweekly, the New England Blade, the Southern Voice, David Atlanta, the Houston Voice, Impact New Orleans, the South Florida Blade, 411, HX New York, and HX Philadelphia). All because of the old saw: they placed corporate greed before community.

A quick history lesson would have told them that gay media was established in order to provide a voice to a minority and to forward the fight for equal rights. When our community is viewed as a marketing demographic rather than a movement, the result should not be surprising. The death of Window Media was self-inflicted.

We've known and worked with many of the staffers at the Window chain and found them each to be good journalists and committed to the greater good of LGBT civil rights. Their bosses, however, left a trail of unpaid staffers. And as much as we love a good old-fashioned newspaper war, the idea of a gay newspaper launching in a city with the sole goal of putting the established newspaper out of business is simply bad for our community.

Window Media was blind and deaf to the needs of the local communities they were supposed to be serving. They entered into cities acting like jack-booted thugs, bullying freelance writers, advertisers, and community organizations.

We witnessed it first hand here in New England with their acquisition of IN Newsweekly. Their mistakes are too numerous to mention but in a nutshell they succeeded in angering local non-profit organizations, replacing the local content in IN with stories from their Washington and New York papers, and pursuing national advertisers to the detriment of their local advertiser base.

Bay Windows survived that challenge because we view our publication, and her place within our community, very differently.

That's how we did business then, now, and will continue to in the future. Sure, the economy is still pretty lousy right now, but we feel we've made it through the worst of this recession. And we actually see a bright future. So if anyone in our community is concerned about the future of Bay Windows, rest assured that we are fine, and we will not make the same mistakes that befell the Washington Blade.

Jeff Coakely and Sue O'Connell
Publishers
Bay Windows
Boston

(The above ran in the Nov. 18, 2009, issue of Bay Windows. Press Pass Q Editor Fred Kuhr is a former editor in chief of IN Newsweekly.)

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Publisher: Todd Evans, todd@PressPassQ.com
Editor: Fred Kuhr, editor@PressPassQ.com
Associate Editor: Dave Brousseau, dave@QSyndicate.com
Contributing Writers: Derrik Chinn, Chuck Colbert, Tanya Gulliver, Liz Highleyman, Michael K. Lavers, Matthew Pilecki, David Webb

CHUCK COLBERT is a freelance journalist based in Cambridge, Mass. He is a longtime contributor to the National Catholic Reporter and covered the crisis of clerical sex-abuse in the Boston archdiocese. Previously a senior reporter and columnist for the former In Newsweekly, he is a contributor to Keen News Service and Boston Spirit Magazine. Also, he has written for major mainstream daily newspapers and magazines, including the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Dallas Morning News, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post. He can be reached at crciiiund@aol.com.

FRED KUHR is an editor, reporter, performer and personal trainer based in Toronto. He has written for The Advocate, AdWeek, Toronto-based Xtra, and Boston Spirit Magazine. He has also served as editor of now-defunct publications In Newsweekly (based in Boston) and Out in the Mountains (based in Vermont). He has served as a news analyst on the Fox News Channel and CBC Radio, as well as other media outlets. Fred blogs about politics and pop culture at the FredBlog at www.fred-blog.com and has been rated one of the top Twitterers of “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance.”

MICHAEL K. LAVERS is the National News Editor for EDGE Publications. His work has appeared in the Fire Island News, the Guide, the Village Voice and other LGBT and mainstream publications around the world. He has also provided commentaries on LGBT issues to the BBC, “The Brian Lehrer Show” on WNYC in New York, “La Razón” in Spain and other media outlets. He also blogs at Boy in Bushwick, which can be found at www.bushwickboy.blogspot.com.

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