There are hundreds of gay or GLBT publications, and dozens of lesbian ones. Yet the bisexual press has a visibility problem - like bisexuals themselves, some might say.
 
Since the demise of the only U.S. national print bisexual magazine, Anything That Moves (ATM), the bi press has taken the form of local newsletters, zines, and online publications.
 
ATM began publishing in 1991, riding the crest of a burgeoning bisexual movement that saw the creation of dozens of local groups and the formation of BiNet USA, a national network for bisexuals (itself now on a long-term hiatus). ATM was a 64-page magazine with a glossy cover, publishing seasonally at first, and with a more random schedule as it aged. The final two issues came out a year apart.
 
After 22 issues, ATM called it quits in the spring of 2001. According to former staffer Jack Random, "The primary reason for ATM's fold was volunteer burnout, aggravated by the perennial financial issues of any small volunteer organization."
 
The group tried to find new blood to take over, but met with little success. In the end, the magazine's remaining assets were turned over to a local San Francisco group, the Bay Area Bisexual Network. "Everyone wanted ATM to keep publishing, but no one had the guts to take it over," said former staffer Jennifer Yee. "I figure that ATM was around for 10 years, and  perhaps that was the natural life of that type of magazine in that format."
 
Today, bi print publications tend to be smaller and more locally oriented, including group newsletters like the Boston Bisexual Women's Network's photocopied Bi Women, which has been around for two decades.
 
"I don't know if a large glossy with a paid staff and high overhead cost is sustainable," said Toronto's Cheryl Dobinson, who publishes The Fence (www.thefence.ca), a zine for bi women. "But there's still a do-it-yourself bi press with lots of little pockets here and there."
 
The Fence, which debuted in September 2002, has about 70 subscribers and a print run of 500. "I wanted to give bisexual women a voice and some representation, to provide a place where they could hear people's stories and share their own," Dobinson said.
 
The rise of the Internet has not deterred Dobinson, who describes herself as "an old-school zinester." She puts The Fence together with scissors, tape, and a photocopier. "I like zine culture. I like something you can read on the subway and pass along to friends," she said. "It's very satisfying to have a product you made with your own hands."
 
Across the pond, Jen Yockney edits Bi Community News (www.bicommunitynews.co.uk), Britain's national bi newsletter, which has been going strong since 1995. Yockney says the print publication has felt the impact of the Internet, and especially of blogs. "'Net communications have knocked a real hole in the amount of stuff that goes through magazines like BCN," she reported. "Bis are having the debate directly with one another, rather than through our letters pages, which is great for immediacy, but sharpens the information divide and loses the historical record."
 
Back on this continent, Silicon Valley bi activist Thomas Leavitt said that online talk is easier for everybody. "Why kill yourself raising money, struggling to meet deadlines and pay bills, when you can obtain 90 percent of the benefit by running an online publication?"
 
BiMagazine (www.bimagazine.org) is one example of a successful online bi publication. The year-old periodical is only available on the Web, and is bankrolled by the San Diego-based activist Dr. Fritz Klein (author of "The Bisexual Option" and editor of the Journal of Bisexuality). One of the few well-paying bi publications, BiMagazine looks for "excellent journalism on topics relevant to bisexuals," said San Diego-based journalist Rex Wockner, who edits the nonfiction section.
 
Wockner and others suggest that bi publications are giving way to media that are not specific to a single orientation. "Fewer people are making a big deal about their label," said Wockner. And an ATM alumnus went on to found
Other: The Magazine for People Who Defy Categories.
 
Much of bisexual activism has focused on gaining inclusion within gay and lesbian institutions, including its media. During the 1990s, countless publications expanded their scope to include bisexual and transgender people.
 
San Francisco's Bay Times changed its masthead to include "B" and "T" in the early 1990s, prompting several angry letters from lesbian readers. And Jeff Epperly, when he was editor of Boston's Bay Windows, once famously declined to cover the International Bisexual Conference held across the river in Cambridge.
 
Many bisexuals took that editorial decision as a personal slight, but Epperly, now a freelancer, told Press Pass Q that he was simply short-handed.
 
"As for general bisexual coverage in the paper, I got better at understanding bi issues, like many people. Twenty years ago when I started writing for the paper, I think I shared the misconception that bisexuals were harmless but confused gay men and lesbians who were just starting to come out and couldn't yet admit they were Kinsey sixes. I was wrong and I learned."
 
Epperly also said that, at the time, he thought "precious space and time were better used covering issues that affected everyone with an interest in sexual orientation topics," and listed violence, discrimination, and government as issues that bring all readers together. As such, the paper didn't cover bears or the gay party circuit, either.
 
"Of course, everyone wants to see themselves reflected very specifically in a paper, and if they are not they tend to see it as exclusionary. I saw it as covering topics in a broad enough manner so as to include everyone."
 
New Bay Windows editor Andrew Rapp made a point of welcoming bisexual readers in one of his first editorials (in 2002). "This newspaper has a responsibility to make the events and issues of the bisexual community visible to our readership," he wrote.
 
Visibility is a constant concern. Asked what kinds of bisexual content she'd like to see more of, Boston-based activist Robyn Ochs suggested coverage of bi events, bi speakers and performers, and profiles of bi organizations and bi leaders, plus the inclusion of bi-identified individuals in stories that are not specifically about bisexuality. "I'd like to see bisexual individuals and organizations woven unremarkably into the community fabric and documented in our history," she said.
 
But former Bay Times staff writer Tim Kingston accused those in the GLBT media of ignoring bi identity even when it is made clear. He said celebrities are pressured to adopt a firm gay identity when they may actually be bisexual. "There remains a confusion between being closeted versus being bi," he said.
 
He added that many people in so-called gay or lesbian marriages are in fact openly bisexual - but their sexual orientation is pervasively mischaracterized in the GLBT (and mainstream) media. Reporters, he suggested, just can't get identity right.

WHO'S NUMBER ONE ON THE WEB? On a Saturday afternoon in early October, about 595,000 of all people surfing the Web visited Gay.com and, while there, clicked on about five pages. Perhaps due to the rainy weather on the East Coast, that's 63,000 more visitors than Gay.com has averaged daily over the past three months.
 
On the same afternoon, 90,000 folks hit PlanetOut.com, 60,000 surfed to 365gay.com, 35,000 looked at Advocate.com, 25,000 checked out Gaywired.com, and 10,000 got their gossip at Datalounge.com.
 
Traffic rankings and other website data are available from Alexa.com (a service owned by Amazon.com). PC users can download the Alexa toolbar that displays traffic rankings and related sites while they surf. Mac and Linux users can use the Alexa site, but the toolbar is not available on those platforms.
 
Alexa product manager Geoff Mack told Press Pass Q that the rankings are calculated from the surfing habits of the more than one million people using Alexa's tool bar during any given three-month period. Mack estimates that there are now close to a billion Internet users worldwide, and over 16 million websites, the vast majority of which get no visits from Alexa users, and hence will show no traffic rankings. Website operators don't need to do anything to get listed; as people browse the Web, sites will eventually turn up on Alexa.
 
Using Gay.com data as an example, Mack translated the main measurements found on Alexa.com.
 
"Reach per million" means that for any group of one million users, a certain number are visiting a certain site. Gay.com's three-month average "reach per million" was 533. (Said Mack: "If there are one billion people on the Web, you could multiply that 533 times 1,000, and that's a decent guess for how many people visit Gay.com every day.")
 
"Page views per user" is the number of unique pages viewed by users who visit that site on any given day. Gay.com's page views per user averaged 10.2 for three months. This means that when somebody goes to the site, they are likely to open 10.2 pages while there.
 
"Traffic rank" is an average based on page views and user counts for a site; the higher the traffic, the lower the ranking. Gay.com averaged 1,156 out of the millions of websites in existence. 365gay.com's traffic ranking is 11,601; Advocate.com's is 37,806. Yahoo is number one.
 
Website owners can use Alexa to find out who their competitors are, and how many users and page views they have. "Your traffic rank is not as important as the traffic rank of the people that you're interacting with, or your competitors," Mack said. "Sites with high page views per user generally have more useful and interesting content than sites with low page views," he added. "We tell you how fast the site is, how many sites link to it, whether it has pop-ups, and how long it's been online. All that can be useful when you're trying to figure out the landscape that you're operating in."
 
Mack cautioned that a site with a fairly low traffic ranking will have less accurate traffic numbers, but any other data - site description, related links, browse category, etc. - will be just as useful as for the big guns.
 
- Bennett Marcus
 
 
OUTING IN THE MEDIA. The headline on Richard Burnett's monthly column in the September issue of Fugues read "Out the bastards." But then he didn't. Perhaps because Burnett is out of the Capitol Hill gossip loop, based as he is in Montreal, far from Washington, D.C.'s madding crowd.
 
"I've never had a problem using outing as a tool to manipulate politics," Burnett wrote. "And over the years I have done it...."
 
The writer did, however, quote syndicated columnist Michelangelo Signorile proclaiming Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski as a lesbian who has voted against gay rights measures.
 
Signorile's summer column was followed, in early September, with his look at hypocrisy in the media. "I received a telephone call from a reporter at the New York Daily News asking me if I knew of a certain Republican political strategist's imminent outing in a gay magazine. 'We don't do that sort of thing ourselves - you know, out people,' the reporter claimed, 'but with this individual it would be an issue of major hypocrisy if it were true, so we'd probably run with it. Who could object?'"
 
Signorile has no worries with outing; he only wishes it were more evenly practiced. (And the New York outing appears to have been a rumor only.)
 
Overall, activist threats to out gay staffers in Washington who work for homophobic politicians received relatively little hard news coverage in the GLBT media. And when it did get some press, there was very little actual outing.
 
The Advocate weighed in on Aug. 31 with a story headlined "Outing themselves: The founders of a group of gay U.S. Senate staffers say threatened outings on Capitol Hill do nothing to help gay rights." And gay student Jacob Wilcock wrote about becoming a mini cause celebre when his former boss, same-sex marriage fighter Sen. Wayne Allard, presented him with a scholarship from Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
 
In that same issue was an interview with Ron Reagan Jr., son of the late (considered by many to be homophobic) Republican president. Reagan Jr. said he has been attacked in the GLBT media for refusing to come out, but said he's heterosexual.
 
The outing controversy was also covered by syndicated news writers Rex Wockner and Bob Roehr, most noticeably given front-page treatment in San Francisco's Bay Area Reporter on July 15. Roehr wrote that an activist had outed Senate Committee staffer Jonathan Tolman, who said he is already publicly gay. Roehr then repeated rumors naming Mikulski and Florida's often-outed Congressman Mark Foley; no new names surfaced.
 
A handful of syndicated columnists, such as Jennifer Vanasco for outing, Paul Varnell looking at both sides, and Q Syndicate's Paula Martinac critical of recent outings, tackled the issue, too. But regularly appearing in-house coverage was rare (New York's Gay City News and Baltimore Gay Life were exceptions), with copy most consistently and overwhelmingly showing up in the Washington Blade and its fellow Window Media newspapers (in New York, Houston, and Atlanta, and also in sibling Unite Media's Express Gay News in Florida).
 
The Washington Blade began its extensive coverage in June. The July 9 edition featured an advertisement threatening gay staffers in the context of the upcoming same-sex marriage vote, with a matching front-page story on the activist campaign (writer Adrian Brune's "Outed Hill staffer condemns campaign," referring to the same Jonathan Tolman who told writer Bob Roehr he was already out).
 
Foley and Mikulski were named (and both voted against the Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage). The story said activists had a list of some 20 targets.
 
The Blade struck again on its front page of July 23, quoting activists who outed Jay Timmons, executive director of a committee seeking to maintain Republican control of the U.S. Senate, and a former employee of an anti-gay-marriage politician. And Express Gay News editor Mubarak Dahir's story on an antigay Senate candidate's two gay advisors also ran. Regular coverage and letters to the editor continued, and tackled the issue from all sides.
 
The gay media across the United States as a whole gave much more space to the surprise retirement of married Virginia Republican Congressmember Edward Schrock, following the release of a gay personal ad he allegedly recorded.
 
- Eleanor Brown
 
 
BRINGING THIRD PARTIES INTO THE MEDIA MIX. More and more media outlets are inking business - and even editorial - partnerships with third-party companies. Is this type of agreement the wave of the future?
 
On the business side, Nashville's Out & About Newspaper teamed up with DiversityBuilder.com, a Tennessee-based online referral service that provides listings of more 20 types of gay-friendly businesses in five states.
 
Under the deal, businesses listed on the DiversityBuilder website will get a 20 percent discount on display ads in the newspaper, while the paper's sales representatives can offer DiversityBuilder products to current and prospective clients.
 
O&AN publisher Jerry Jones sees no drawbacks. "We could not provide the services they're providing," Jones said. "I think that's invaluable in itself. They bring expertise in marketing their product and getting word out about it." At the time the deal was signed, in March, O&AN's sales staff was all male. DiversityBuilder is run by lesbian couple Debbie and Rachel Stanton, and the pair was considered "a good link to the lesbian community." (O&AN has since hired a full-time female ad saleswoman, Rita Hogan.)
 
Additionally, the paper publishes a monthly list of new businesses that have been added to the Diversity Builder resource list that is included in the paper's regular business briefs. That's editorial copy, but Jones said running a simple list is not an infringement on editorial integrity. "It doesn't include interviews, etc. Our policy on promising advertiser business features or profiles, etc., is clear - we just don't make any promises based on their ad buys." (He added that two potential advertisers have refused to buy in since the paper's founding, "because we wouldn't promise to do a positive feature story on their business.")
 
Jones said the benefits came slowly. "It's been an interesting process and takes the right salesperson to explain the different packages.... It took at least six months before we sold the first dual package. In total, we've now sold six dual packages."
 
Jones said the paper has just expanded its partnership with DiversityBuilder to jointly sponsor community events. This arrangement both better promotes the events and shares the burden of sponsorship.
 
PlanetOut Partners, Inc. regularly signs on with partnering companies to offer value-added services to their readers. Recently, for example, it announced a deal with HIV information provider AIDSmeds.com in which the HIV-owned and operated company is, in effect, providing editorial content to PlanetOut readers, via links located on the Health and Fitness channels of various PlanetOut sites.
 
PlanetOut Inc. editor-in-chief Beth Callaghan said, "As a company we offer a lot of information, but we don't have the focus and the bandwidth necessary for anything specific. [With this agreement] we're able to provide this very fast resource to our users. It's definitely a win-win situation."
 
PlanetOut has no control over the other company's content. More than 500 additional articles about HIV and AIDS are accessible, including up-to-date information on all classes of HIV/AIDS treatment drugs. Topics addressed range from "Am I Infected? A Guide to Testing for HIV" to "Special Issues for Women and Children" to "Living with HIV."
 
Said Callaghan: "We're getting good feedback from our users." Outside of saying that PlanetOut can track more than a million visitors to the Health & Fitness channel daily, she didn't have exact numbers for how many access AIDSmeds.
 
"I'm all in favor of making these partnerships and building these relationships in the future. I think it's smart to make partnerships like that. We're building really good bridges within our community."
 
- D.C. Culbertson
 
 
FLORIDA PUBLICATIONS SURVIVE HURRICANES. Making jokes about how God protects gays, editors contacted by Press Pass Q said Florida GLBT media survived multiple hurricanes with few disruptions.
 
Watermark's offices are in Orlando, where Hurricane Charley hit hard. Editor Dave Wiethop said: "It was like being in the worst traffic accident ever because it took so long and the damage was so profound." No staffers were hurt.
 
Charley destroyed whole sections of Watermark's neighborhood, but the offices were spared, though electricity was lost. "We began talking about worst-case scenarios - moving the operation to a hotel that had power, missing deadline by a day or two, that sort of thing," said Wiethop. Power returned after one working day (and was off for only three days).
 
The paper published a piece on what single item you'd save if fleeing your home.
 
Editor Brian Feist of The Gazette, a monthly in St. Petersburg, said the hurricanes all bypassed his city. The office was even spared power outages.
 
She Magazine, a monthly published in Davie, also survived. Managing editor Tina Sordellini said Hurricane Ivan had little effect on the magazine, which was published before the storm hit. But the website server, located in Lake Worth, went down, and it took five days to switch servers. And the magazine lost money because of the cancellation of two events at Womenfest Key West. "We took a small financial hit there, but that will be made up during the reschedule dates."
 
The office was shut down for one day when Hurricane Jeanne hit, just in case. "We were fully prepared and had everything we needed to finish the magazine burned onto CDs, in the event that there was any major loss of power, etc., for more than that day," said Sordellini. "All in all though, it didn't really hold us up, even with the one-day shut down. We were still able to finish the issue and get to press on time."
 
Over in Miami, all's well at The Weekly News and its sibling, Contax Guide. Publisher Bill Watson said simply: "No story from down here. All four storms passed. Our printer never lost power, and we came out on time." A note in TWN's Sept. 9 issue gave readers a "second chance" to find the previous issue online. And some distribution racks were removed from city sidewalks and put into storage, just in case. They're now back in place.
 
A staffer answering the telephone at HotSpots in Fort Lauderdale reported only good news. The weekly Express Gay News is also in Fort Lauderdale; editor Mubarak Dahir could not be reached, but the website is up to date. (The paper ran a story headlined "Hurricane party props: Gay party tips to help you weather any storm.") Only the glossy travel magazine Our World, in Daytona Beach, was unreachable; an e-mail was returned to sender and the telephone message box was full.
 
The website 365gay.com warned readers that service might be interrupted. "We were spared," said editor Rob Sands. Although he is based in Toronto, Canada, the site relies on computer systems located in central Florida. "Our servers are in a bunker (like a bomb shelter) and there is an emergency generator with a huge underground diesel fuel tank. There was a possibility that the telco line to the backbone of the Internet might fail, but it didn't."
 
Sands added that the weather had political ends. "These storms were not directed at gays anyway. If you fly the rainbow you are spared from God's wrath. It was all aimed at Republicans!"
 
- Eleanor Brown
 
 
GAYTODAY SHUTS DOWN. The website GayToday.com posted its last update on Sept. 30, with editor Jack Nichols blaming a lack of money.
 
"One thing unique about GayToday, when contrasted with most news publications, has been its commitment to what I call personal journalism as opposed to the mainstream's fantasy that there's actually such an animal as objective journalism," said Nichols. "It should be a no-brainer that no matter how many people are quoted to confuse the reader, a news article will still retain the outlook of whoever is its author or the view that's dictated by that author's corporate-owned overseer. GayToday presented the strong opinions of knowledgeable people."
 
GayToday's first content was posted Feb. 2, 1997. It was the free news service of the Florida-based Badpuppy, which runs a paid gay pornography site.
 
Nichols said some employees have been laid off - including himself - but did not know any specifics.
 
In an e-mail sent to a GayToday contributor and copied to Press Pass Q, Badpuppy Enterprises, Inc. president William G. Pinyon wrote that he can no longer afford the free news service: "This whole situation has done nothing but frustrate me. GayToday was the one great thing that Badpuppy was able to give back to the community and I hate to see it go."
 
"In my opinion it is the whole of the adult credit card industry consolidating in upon itself that I would say is the cause. Whether it is our current administration or because so many webmasters did not care about fraud and just were in it for the money that ruined it for everyone [because they too easily accepted fake credit cards].... I would say that both played a heavy role. Over the last year PayPal, 2000Charge, and now IBill have either had to stop processing credit cards altogether, or like IBill are having problems getting a new Merchant Account." Pinyon wrote that he is facing an almost 35 percent reduction in rebilling income.
 
- Eleanor Brown

*AND BABY magazine will make the leap to television, inking a deal with Here TV for a 30 minute, 12-episode series called "Family." It will debut in November, hosted by And Baby publisher MICHELLE DARNE, and executive produced by Roberta Friedman (in conjunction with her company, Magic Circle Media).
 
*GAY CHICAGO publisher RALPH-PAUL GERNHARDT will be inducted into the municipally sponsored Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame at an Oct. 27 ceremony. The 70-year-old co-founded Gay Chicago in 1976, as well as running an informational phone line that he started back in 1975 - a rarity for its era.
 
*Chicago's CHARLES E. CLIFTON died Aug. 15, of an apparent heart attack, at 45 years of age. He had edited POSITIVELY AWARE JOURNAL for the last four years, and had been executive director of the magazine's publisher, Test Positive Aware Network, since 2002. He also wrote periodically for BLACKLINES (which later became Identity magazine). Clifton will also be inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame later this month.
 
*MERYL COHN, also known as MS. BEHAVIOR, dropped her lawsuit for trademark infringement against the Boston Globe when the paper changed the name of its advice and etiquette columnist from "Miss Behave" to "Miss Conduct." Cohn filed the lawsuit June 24, and had received a federal trademark for her professional identity in 1997.
 
*COMMERCIAL CLOSET's MICHAEL WILKE said his website was targeted by the Mississippi-based fundamentalist group American Family Association, whose partisans were angry with the gay-positive advertising of Procter & Gamble (Wilke's site tracks gay ads.) "The AFA alert linked to our site, and its millions of members hammered us with 1.5 million hits an hour, bringing CommercialCloset.org out of operation for nearly three days on Sept. 29, 30 and Oct. 1. The traffic was from individuals, not an automated software program."
 
*LINDA CROWDER is the new chief operations officer at FRONTIERS NEWSMAGAZINE in Los Angeles.
 
*The University of North Carolina-Charlotte has introduced the CURTIS E. JOHNSON MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP, in honor of a former student (and staff member of the locally published Q-NOTES newspaper). Curtis died in a car accident in May. Tax-deductible contributions may be sent to the UNC-Charlotte Foundation, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC, 28223.
 
*EXPRESS GAY NEWS is launching a twice-yearly South Florida publication called EXPRESS PAGES. It will be a directory for the arts, entertainment, community services, and shopping. The first issue is expected in November, and 50,000 copies will be distributed.
 
*A write-up at the website FAGOOGLE.COM reports that Google.com has kept the gay service from launching. The founders said they followed Google rules for use as its search engine: "We understood that by following these terms carefully, we were being given the go-ahead by Google. Google was not satisfied, however, and are now attempting to claim that this website domain name contains their intellectual property: the word 'google.'" Fagoogle's JACOB SEBASTIAN told Press Pass Q that the service is under redevelopment, and hopes to have "basic site functionality" by Christmas. "I can tell you also that we've purchased a new domain, and at this point it seems most likely that the site will be called Fagoog.com. This will put the legal world back on our side, and is very similar to our original [name]." The service expects to donate any profit made from advertising to gay charities.

*GAY & LESBIAN TIMES in San Diego has a new editor. RUSSELL O'BRIEN took over with the Aug. 26 issue. He replaces interim editor JANET SAIDI, a contributing writer.
 
*The GAY AND LESBIAN ALLIANCE AGAINST DEFAMATION has published a media resource kit on dancehall and antigay hate lyrics. It's at www.glaad.org/media/resource_kit_detail.php?id=3718.
 
*Former NEW YORK NATIVE editor and arts journalist JOHN HAMMOND died of cancer in Toronto on Sept. 12. Much of his professional career was spent in New York. He co-founded the International Gay History Archive in 1981 (housed in the New York Public Library). Hammond moved to Toronto, Canada, in 2001, and married Bruce Eves last March. Contributions in Hammond's memory may be made to LEGIT-Toronto (Lesbian and Gay Immigration Task Force), PO Box 111, Station F, Toronto, ON, M4Y 2L4.
 
*U.S. Senator JOHN KERRY has given what is believed to be the first interview with a candidate for president of United States with the gay press. The Democratic presidential candidate spoke with freelancer LISA KEEN, and the interview ran in selected GLBT media in September. The Washington Blade included an editor's note with the copy, noting that its own reporters have been steadily refused interviews with the candidate. It added that Keen "made personal contributions to two Democratic presidential candidates" (see Keen's letter to Press Pass Q elsewhere in this issue). The note also said that she received help landing the interview from the National Gay Newspaper Guild, some of whose officials are public Kerry supporters. Finally, Keen was recently married in Kerry's home state, with the legal status of gay marriage being a part of the interview. "[B]ecause of Kerry's limited accessibility this interview is being published with full disclosure of these potential conflicts of interest." The Blade also reported that Kerry gave The Advocate 15 minutes of time.
 
*Syndicated weekly entertainment and gossip columnist BILLY MASTERS discovered that his website, FILTH2GO.COM, has been blocked by Caribbean Cruise Lines (which makes computers available to customers at sea). Masters said he believes the name - "filth" - sets off automatic antiporn triggers.
 
*OUTLOOK (in Columbus, Ohio) teamed up with the Stonewall Democrats to include a voter registration card in every copy of the Sept. 23 edition.
 
*The rival Gay Games VII (to be held July 15 to 22, 2006, in Chicago) and Montreal's Outgames (scheduled from July 29 to Aug. 5, 2006) have both snagged important GLBT media sponsorships. Gay Games signed a US$1 million deal with San Francisco-based PLANETOUT, billed in a September press release as "the largest corporate sponsorship ever for an international LGBT sporting event and doubles the size of their commitment to Gay Games VI in Sydney, Australia in 2002. The sponsorship agreement provides Gay Games VII organizers access to PlanetOut's 3.3 million active members residing in more than 100 countries throughout the world." (Tracy Baim, publisher of Chicago's WINDY CITY TIMES, is Gay Games VII co-vice chair and head of the Corporate Fundraising Committee.) In October, the First World Outgames announced a US$1 million sponsored deal with HYPERION INTERACTIVE MEDIA (H.I.M. CORP.), which runs 13 queer websites that include Gaywired.com, LesbiaNation.com, and LatinoGLO.com. The communique said that the H.I.M. network receives more 1.2 million visitors per month.
 
*The biweekly VITAL VOICE (St. Louis, MO) launched a contest for readers in its Oct. 8 issue: A line drawing of a flower is placed in a single advertisement in every issue. Readers must identify the ad and send it in to qualify for a monthly drawing for US$100. "I am always looking for new ways to entertain the readers and make certain our advertisers experience value," wrote publisher Pam Schneider.
 
*WEDDING BELLS: Writer LESLEA NEWMAN and Mary Vazquez tied the knot Sept. 10 in Northampton, Mass.
 
*DAWN WOLFE is a new staff writer at Detroit's BETWEEN THE LINES.

..............................................................................

Are there important changes going on at your publication? E-mail the information to editor@PressPassQ.com.

LETTERS 

"Google Ignores Gay Media?" (Press Pass Q, September 2004)
 
Regarding your article stating that news.google.com short-shrifts the gay press: The substance of the article is correct; however, I just typed "Rex Wockner" into news.google.com and it pulled up my work from several gay papers that were not on your list, including the Windy City Times in Chicago, Between The Lines in Michigan, and the Dallas Voice.
 
Probably all that most papers need to do to be included is ask.
 
Rex Wockner (San Diego, Calif.)
 
 
"PayPal Talks Back" (Press Pass Q, September 2004)
 
Thank you for continuing to cover the PayPal situation. But a few corrections:
 
My site is www.perrybrass.com - not "Belhue Press," the name of the company that publishes my books and which is solely owned by my partner.
 
PayPal wrote us in a statement that what caused them to close our account - or put it on limited access, which is basically the same thing with them - was that we had book covers showing "individuals touching each other." They insisted that these book covers be removed. What they were referring to were pictures of men "touching each other." I still stand by my statement that these book covers are no more "pornographic" than any Fabio-style women's romance book, showing men stripped to the waist and women with heaving bosoms coming out of their bodices. It is the fact that they showed men touching one another that bothered them.
 
Perry Brass (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
 
 
"Power and Privilege in the Gay Media" (Press Pass Q, September 2004)
 
Minor point but essential to one of the great current newspaper rivalries: Page 6 is in the New York Post, not the Daily News (as the Judy Wieder piece had it).
 
Steve Weinstein (New York, N.Y.)
 
 
"Making Donations to Politicians" (Press Pass Q, September 2004)
 
Your article about Michael Petrelis revealing contributions made by gay journalists to political campaigns mentions that I made such a contribution. If the reporter had called me for comment, I would have revealed much more.
 
In my 20 years as executive editor of The Washington Blade, I never contributed to a political campaign. After I stopped writing for the Blade, I contributed to five political campaigns. As Michael's website points out, I contributed to Carol Moseley Braun's presidential bid; I also contributed to Howard Dean's. I was not covering the presidential campaign for any newspaper at the time. When I was later recruited to cover the presidential race by other media, I disclosed these contributions in those articles.
 
I made a contribution to my local state representative in Massachusetts but, as a freelancer for the Boston Globe, I recuse myself from any coverage involving her or her opponents. I contributed to the campaigns of an openly gay candidate running for office in Georgia, but I have no occasion to report on her. And finally, I bought a ticket to a fundraising reception for a Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate so I could escort my spouse to the event - that counts as a contribution, too, and I disclosed that in the one article I prepared concerning a debate among candidates.
 
Ideally, journalists should not contribute to campaigns when their beats require them to report on those races. In cases where contributions have been made, the journalist should either eschew coverage of those races or make a full public disclosure of the contribution to readers. That is my policy; I think it's reasonable, and I follow it.
 
Lisa Keen (Wellesley, Mass.)
 
..............................................................................
Send your thoughts, praise, and criticism to editor@PressPassQ.com. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and may be edited for style and length.

****** HEAD OF SALES: H.A.F. Publishing, San Francisco publisher of Girlfriends, On Our Backs, and three regional annuals, seeks Advertising Sales Director. Key player in the relaunch, sales development of national titles. Direct, motivate, and set targets for 2-3 account managers. Three years exp., inc. national agencies. Competitive salary, commissions, generous employee benefit package. Cover letter, resume heather@girlfriendsmag.com, or fax 415-648-4705.
 
****** JUST OUT SEEKS a full-time news editor who will work with staff and freelance writers to ensure that the biweekly newsmagazine continues to publish timely and eye-catching articles about the sexual minorities community in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Other duties include compiling local, national and world newsbriefs, and letters to the editor; writing obituaries; assigning photos; collaborating with the art director; and occasionally covering news events. The ideal candidate will have experience with both newspaper editing and writing; fluency in AP style; familiarity with and passion for local queer news and culture; and a wealth of dedication and creativity. Salary DOE. Good benefits package. Contact marty@justout.com.
 
****** ON THE WEB. The Press Pass Q website is up and running at www.PressPassQ.com; you'll find back issues and subscription information there. Also, at the Q Syndicate website - www.qsyndicate.com - you'll find up-to-date information on the 15 columns and features we distribute to gay and lesbian media: A Couple of Guys, Bitter Girl, Book Marks, Crossword Puzzles, Deep Inside Hollywood, Editorial Cartoons, Lesbian Notions, Now Playing, On Q, Out of Town, Past Out, Q Scopes, Sex Talk, Sports Complex, and Word Searches. For information about subscribing to Q Syndicate content, write to sales@qsyndicate.com or call 908-232-5974.
 
****** LOOKING FOR WRITERS. Press Pass Q is always in need of reporters to write feature stories on issues of concern to the lesbian and gay press. Writers should be familiar with gay media, accustomed to tight deadlines, and willing to take editorial direction. Contact Eleanor Brown at editor@PressPassQ.com to express interest or for more information.
 
****** DO YOU HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT for the Bulletin Board? Are you trying to get your work published? Looking for job applicants? Promoting a special project? Press Pass Q is now distributed to almost 2,000 working professionals in the gay and lesbian press. Bulletin Board announcements are just a dollar (U.S.) per word per insertion, paid up front. Send a check payable to Rivendell Media, P.O. Box 518, Westfield, NJ 07091-0518.

PRESS PASS Q is an e-mail newsletter published by Rivendell Media and Q Syndicate and distributed free each month to anyone involved with or interested in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender press. If you are not currently receiving this newsletter via e-mail, you can add your name to our mailing list at www.PressPassQ.com.
 
To ensure receipt of the newsletter, all subscribers should add editor@presspassq.com to their address books in light of more aggressive spam filters which might screen out Press Pass Q.
 
If you do NOT want to receive Press Pass Q, send an e-mail to editor@PressPassQ.com (or simply reply to this message) with the words REMOVE ME in the subject line, or in the body of the message.
 
All materials published in Press Pass Q are (c)2004 Rivendell Media and are not intended for publication elsewhere. Feel free, however, to forward this newsletter to any individuals or lists who you think should see it.