The Southern Voice has been shut down; other pubs to come?

Nothing yet

as to what others specifically are involved. But the story was picked up by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.


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by: Louise @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 09:41:53 AM CST

'David' is gone

Found this update via Creative Loafing.

Washington Blade next?
Ft Lauderdale's South Florida Blade? Nothing yet on either.

UPDATE: "We had been told that essentially we'd be sold down the road," SoVo Editor Laura Douglas-Brown tells CL. "We had no inclination it'd be this morning. Everyone's in shock right now."

"The thing to keep in mind is that this is not just Southern Voice," Douglas-Brown says. "This is also the Washington Blade, which has been the gay paper of record for our country for the last 40 years. And David Magazine and the paper in Fort Lauderdale. It's not just a loss for the employees, but the gay community as well."

Richard Eldredge in Atlanta is Twittering updates...

This from Queerty makes it sounds like ALL of Window Media's pubs are gone.


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by: Louise @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 09:58:43 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Looks like the LGBT media

will be largely digital from now on. As i understand it, even the magazines have been struggling.

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by: SciFi Geek @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 10:47:46 AM CST

True

And, in that regard, the digital divide (which still exists) is a worrisome thing.

(But does this affect the digital versions of these print LGBT media as well?)

On the other hand, I have heard a lot of complaints about LGBT print media, especially the magazines.

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by: kevinchi @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 10:58:21 AM CST

[ Parent ]

This is the same thing

that happened in Boston.  In Newsweekly was bought by the Washington Blade and a few months later the newly titled New England Blade closed up shop and everyone was out of business.

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by: BB @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 10:57:23 AM CST

It's called progress

I'm sad to hear the Windows Media publications are kaput. But let's face it, the net has impacted people and companies globally for years now - even this popular blog has helped it happen. They cannot compete easily, ad revenues have been down everywhere, and people won't pay for it.

Until they can find a way to cover operating costs, they won't survive, so we will have to find our news in other ways. The public is very fickle anyway, and will cross the street for 3 cents.

It's the same as what Walmart has done to Mainstreet. Compete or die, mostly die because they cannot compete.

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by: brokebackvol @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 11:04:40 AM CST

I guess "niche audiences" are only supposed to go to the internet now

The Advocate, Ebony, Jet, So Vo ... not to mention the long gone Clik.

There is something disturbing about the failure/closure of these media outlets that goes beyond the logic of "that's progress and they failed to move with the times."

It's almost as if minority populations are showing no regard for the publications that chronicled their history.

I'm very suspicious about "online only" journalism as a business because I don't see how people will get paid.

I suppose we can ask the Gill Foundation, HRC, or other rich benefactors to publish media as a charity or a funded grant, but I'm not sure about that either.  

Be better, not bitter!

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by: Anthony in Nashville @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 11:30:18 AM CST

Lets do some analysis

Is it simply the impact of the internet? I'm not naive enough to say that it has had no impact or even that it has not had a major impact.

But - have we not seen enough corporate devouring consolidation outside of LGBT-ness to see that it NEVER serves the public at large?  Another commenter mentioned Wal-Mart.  What Wal-Mart does isn't capitalism; its government-aided (by omission) bullying.  Writing off its casualties as 'not being able to compete' is tantamount to saying that a gay-bashing victim 'had it coming.'  

More than a few people have come to see HRC as the Wal-Mart of LGB(T) rights organizations.

As for the Washington Blade?

I have long referred to the Washington Blade (and its hoding company, collectively) as 'Queer Channel Media,' because it has long been an LGB(T) print/net equivalent to broadcast media's Clear Channel Media - a conglomerate which incessantly claims it merely operates in line with market forces, yet has a clear agenda that it advances irrespective of the market and/or Arbitron.  That agenda is not always evident from what any particular of its stations broadcasts, but it is crystal clear from how it controls the market and prevents any discussion - measured qualtitatively and qualitatively - that it doesn't desire.

I lament the loss of local, legit LGB(T) media which occurred anytime that Queer Channel Media gobbled up something local and/or indirectly caused something local to simply go away.  I lament the loss of coverage that will likely occur in the future  (gee...just in time for what will be a heating up of things regarding ENDA....)

Yet, I can't quite muster any tears for the entity that, for too long, gave Chris Crain free reign to opine that trans people had 'trans-jacked' ENDA.

>^..^<

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by: KatRose @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 11:38:45 AM CST

how is it different to what happened to other gay businesses

Once upon a time, our community supported our gay travel agents, bookstores, florists, etc. But then the internet brought the ease of buying online. Now the "roaming gnome" and other mega travel companies have nearly destroyed the small gay travel agencies that used to be how Atlanta, RSVP, etc. was sold.

Think FTD hasn't cut into the local gay florist's business? The list goes on. There is no loyalty anymore, that is the state of today's business world reality.  

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by: brokebackvol @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 11:47:55 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Two thoughts:

You make a very good point, brokebackvol.

1. Shutting down the gATM is great and all, but by not preferentially supporting LGBT-owned businesses, the chances are very, very high that your money is going to fund the very people that wish to deny us basic rights anyway.  Think about that the next time you make any purchase.  Where do you think the the churches get their money?  From small and medium business owners.  So if you are serious about putting away your gATM card for politicians, be consistent and also make sure you aren't   donating directly to the Sunday collection basket.  

The Catholic Church gets this; witness the latest encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, "Caritas in Veritate" (Latin: "Charity in Truth" or "Love in Truth") released last June.  Reading between the Love and Truth verbage, it basically spells out for the Faithful that charity is fine and dandy, but only if you are using to change the world according to Catholic values.  Where you spend your money makes a difference!

2. This speaks more to other posts than this one, but this sort of thing has sadly been going on for a while now.  Every time there is a boom, good companies get bought up on what is essentially borrowed or leveraged money.  Then in the bust the foundation-less parent company fails due to a bad business model.  The only bright side that I can see is that post-bust it creates a wide open market for new blood.

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by: sarasnavel @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 15:09:45 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I have been disappointed in the Washington Blade for some time

Smaller pubs do such a better job in reporting.
And has anyone here frequented the comments section of the Blade's site?  They repeatedly let anti-gay voices run or ruin the conversations, taking no or the wrong action.
I suspected bad management, just from seeing that.  They allowed terrible things in there for all weekend while they were not working I guess.
I'm not surprised.  Be quality or you won't be.

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by: Tom P @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 11:56:51 AM CST

...

They got rid of those anti-gay voices some time ago; I assume that they banned the relevant person(s) although it took them forever to do so.

During that, they added a moderation system that was broken as you would have lurkers modding almost every comment down (after the apparent ban), you could mod your own comments up or down, and there was an incentive to not use the reply system for those being modded down because it would cause their comments to stay visible.

Considering how few stories they had, I'm not sure why they didn't just manually moderate. That would have been much better than their useless automatic system.

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by: Arbitrator @ Tue Nov 17, 2009 at 01:50:02 AM CST

[ Parent ]

exactly

I'm so glad I'm not the only one that noticed.  Even after they got rid of those people though, they came back, and then the voting system wouldn't work except for people somehow hacking it.  And they just wouldn't fix it or get rid of it, which was so insulting to their gay readers and commentors, which made me wonder if it was even gay people running it in the first place.  Weird.  Glad you noticed.

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by: Tom P @ Fri Nov 27, 2009 at 08:18:43 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Mixed feelings right now...

On one hand, Window Media had it coming. They thought they were "too big to fail", but they really took on more than they could handle. And with a combination of the recession and the death of print media, I guess this was inevitable.

But OTOH, it's just horrifying to see "the gay media" vanish like this so quickly. The Washington Blade was "the LGBT paper of record" for 40 years, and Southern Voice was a much needed voice for Atlanta's LGBT community for 20 years. What happens now? Where do people turn for news, especially those who can't click onto The Blend or Bilerico online?

Act on Principles and make equality happen.  

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by: atdnext @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 14:42:53 PM CST

And, what happened to the archives?

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by: sarasnavel @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 15:11:37 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Hope that the WayBackMachine will allow access

>^..^<

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by: KatRose @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 19:12:34 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Doesn't the WBM only grab front pages?

If there had been even a day's notice it would have been trivial to do a wget on the entire site.  

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by: sarasnavel @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 20:58:56 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I'm not sure of its specs

You're more likely to get a hit for a front page, but if you actually have a deep-link URL - and if the page was in existence for a while - you've got a good shot at finding it on the WBM.

>^..^<

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by: KatRose @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 23:56:32 PM CST

[ Parent ]

that is the kind of thing that concerns me about online media

Someone in the LGBT community needs to come up with a plan for archiving the information once a site closes down.

Without one, it's as if all those stories did not happen.

Be better, not bitter!

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by: Anthony in Nashville @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 21:13:41 PM CST

[ Parent ]

PDF dumps

I do my best to do a PDF dump of any page that I even think I might have cause to cite either in scholarly article or online.  While not a perfect substitute should the page disappear, its better than nothing.

>^..^<

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by: KatRose @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 23:58:30 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Pam,

If you need me to help with coverage of a major event in DC, let me know.  I do have full-time job, but many things occur in DC during my lunch break or after hours that I can go to.

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.-- Thomas Jefferson

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by: Mykelb @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 15:56:33 PM CST

Other Southeast LGBT Newspaper Publications?

I know of Q-Notes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q...

General Information

Q-Notes is published every other week on Saturdays, with a print circulation of approximately 11,000. It is distributed in all major cities in North Carolina and South Carolina and by subscription. The paper covers news, politics, opinion, entertainment, art, lifestyle and other topics. It is the largest LGBT news publication in the Carolinas, with reach to parts of Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia.

Distribution

The paper is distributed in major cities and small-to-medium sized cities and towns in the Carolinas including Charlotte, N.C., where the paper is based; Asheville, Chapel Hill; Charleston; Columbia; Durham; Greensboro; Greenville, S.C.; Raleigh; Wilmington, Winston-Salem and more. The paper also has distribution points and subscribers in Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia.[4]

The full newspaper is also published online at www.q-notes.com.

I've made the mistake before of thinking they were more locally oriented, but apparently they have a fairly broad reach.  I'm sad to hear of such a giant falling, but maybe other papers like this one can use it as an opportunity for expansion?

Are there other gay newspaper publications in the southeast?

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by: Jake Gellar-Goad @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 23:38:46 PM CST