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By JENNIFER 8. LEE
The New York Blade, one of the two major gay and lesbian newspapers in New York City, has laid off its editor in chief and suspended publication, the chief executive of its publishing company said on Wednesday.
“Everyone was let go, but the people on The Blade know that they may come back if The Blade is coming back,” said the executive, Matthew Bank, of HX Media, which was formed in 2005 by the merger of The Blade and HX Magazine.
The moves came on Tuesday after HX was sold to undisclosed buyers. The Blade, a biweekly paper with a free circulation of 22,000, was left with an uncertain future.
“It doesn’t have an issue scheduled until a week from Friday.” Mr. Bank said. “There are a lot of things that can happen between now and then.”
The decision to suspend publication comes at a particularly active period for journalism concerned with gay issues: the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and the gay pride parade on Sunday, the proposed same-sex marriage bill in the State Senate and discontent over the Obama administration’s performance on gay-rights issues.
“It is an incredibly exciting time for gay journalism,” said Kat Long, who had been editor in chief of The Blade since February. “It’s important that gay papers are around to document it.”
Paul Schindler, editor in chief of Gay City News, the rival New York City gay newspaper, said The Blade had “made good contributions over the years.”
While a minority owner in HX Media has gone into receivership, Mr. Bank said that had little to do with the decision to sell the magazine.
Instead, he pointed to the advertising climate: “The economy and the future of print media being more difficult was definitely weighing on us.”
The Blade’s recent gay pride issue had been a relatively slim 28 pages.
“Gay pride is to gay publications what Christmas is to retail,” Mr. Schindler said. “When I pick up The Blade and it’s in 28 pages, then this is a business that is in serious problems.”
Published by the New York Times, July 2, 2009
Tune to lead premier LGBT journalist group beginning May 4, 2009
Washington, D.C. – Today the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) announced that Michael Tune has assumed its top staff post and will oversee its efforts to support newsroom diversity and ensure fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues. As managing director, he will also lead NLGJA’s flagship programs, including its annual convention, scheduled to take place in Montreal in September.
“The nation’s journalists face unprecedented challenges and opportunities in their careers, and we’re excited to have Michael’s energy and experience behind finding new and innovative ways of supporting and promoting LGBT journalists,” said NLGJA National President David Steinberg. “In addition, with LGBT issues such as same-sex marriage equality so much in the news today, LGBT journalists play a unique role in ensuring fair and accurate coverage, both in their reporting and by educating their colleagues in the newsroom.”
Tune comes to the NLGJA from Appleseed, a nonprofit network of public interest justice centers, where he was a member of the senior staff, overseeing finance, human resources, and operations. Michael served during a great period of growth for Appleseed, while revenues rose from $1 million to $2.5 million in three years’ time. He has been active in the city’s nonprofit world for the past eight years.
Founded in 1990, NLGJA is the leading professional organization for LGBT journalists with 22 chapters nationwide, as well as members around the globe. Tune takes over from David Barre, who has led the organization since 2007.
“NLGJA is on the front lines, accomplishing its vital mission of fair and accurate news coverage every day – a cause I am proud to join in advancing. Each day we will ask ourselves, ‘How do we make the greatest impact?’” added Mr. Tune. “We will maintain and build strong programs and resources, from our convention to tools on new and social media. In so doing, NLGJA will move the country toward fairer news coverage and more diverse newsrooms, all while helping LGBT journalists thrive in a changing world.”
NLGJA will host its 2009 National Convention and 6th Annual LGBT Media Summit in Montreal on September 10-13. Information is available at: http://nlgja.org/convention/
About the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association:
NLGJA is an organization of journalists, media professionals, educators and students working from within the news industry to foster fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues. NLGJA opposes all forms of workplace bias and provides professional development to its members. For more information, visit www.nlgja.org.
Media Contact: David Steinberg, 510-708-7004 or president@nlgja.org
By The Associated Press
04.13.2009 8:51am EDT
(New York City) A “glitch” on Amazon.com has caused the sales rank to be removed from gay- and/or lesbian-themed books by James Baldwin, Gore Vidal and others.
“There was a glitch in our systems and it’s being fixed,” Amazon’s director of corporate communications, Patty Smith, said in an e-mail Sunday.
As of Sunday night, books without rankings included Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room,” Vidal’s “The City and the Pillar” and Jeanette Winterson’s “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.” The removals prompted furious remarks on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere online.
Craig Seymour, author of the gay memoir “All I Could Bare,” wrote on his blog Sunday that his sales rank was dropped in February, then restored nearly four weeks later, after he was told by Amazon that his book had been “classified as an Adult product.”
BY ON TOP MAGAZINE STAFFThe Advocate's new owners are as eager to change the drapes at American'sonly national LGBT news magazine as President Barack Obama was aboutchanging his at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.Here Media has clearly taken over the magazine, its content and direction. And the changes are more than mere window dressing.Several bloggers last week took exception to the fact that the magazine's website featured a story concerning another Here Media property. The siteheadlined a story about Beau Breedlove's forthcoming big reveal (we'reoptimistic) in an upcoming issue of Unzipped, a gay porn magazine.Breedlove achieved his 15 minutes by having sex with Portland's openly gaymayor, Sam Adams. Adams has been fighting to remain in office sinceadmitting to the affair he originally dismissed as a “nasty smear.”“A known dude's decision to show his weeny in another gay magazine shouldprobably not be the top story for America's award-winning LGBT newsmagazine,” wrote Jeremy Hooper on the gay activism site goodasyou.org.Then there was the story of the big Oscar win by Here Media-owned RegentReleasing. The Best Foreign Film win for Departures was mentioned on themagazine's website, but the film, whose protagonist is straight and married,does not deal with gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender issues, themagazine's target audience.Other changes include a move to monthly publication, a new editor and theaddition of here! television video content on the website.Yet, Regent Media Executive Vice President Stephen Macias recently said Here Media is a mere caretaker of America's most distinct gay voice. In an exclusive interview with OUTTAKEOnline.com CEO Charlotte Robinson,Macias said: “I think that with The Advocate in particular, myself I seeus as caretakers. Caretakers of the brand and the voice and the platformthat [resulted from] forty-two years of hard work.”PlanetOut, the parent company of The Advocate, Out, Gay.com and PlanetOut.com, agreed to be acquired late last year after announcing it haslost nearly $100 million and faced possible Nasdaq delisting.
Listen to the entire audio interview at voices.OUTTAKEOnline.com.
Courtesy of On Top Magazine: http://ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=3353&MediaType=1&Category=26.
Recession takes toll on gay magazineWashington Blade staff reports Mar 20, 3:55 PM
Genre magazine will temporarily suspend publication, due to the ongoing recession, company officials announced today.
"We thank all of our readers, advertisers and editorial staff for their support throughout our more than 16-year history and hope that we can re-establish our relationship when times are better," company CEO David Unger said in a statement.
He noted that the decision to suspend Genre does not have any impact on other publications produced by HX Media, Window Media or Unite Media (which merged with Window Media in 2004), which include the Washington Blade, Southern Voice, South Florida Blade, New York Blade and HX magazine.
"Those publications will continue to publish and support their local communities," Unger said.
Genre’s suspension didn’t come as a surprise to Gay City News, which revealed that Avalon Equity was forced into receivership by the Small Business Administration early February. Queerty.com, followed up reporting on the troubled gay media enterprise March 14, as well as Towleroad March 21.
Could Window Media be the next queer publishing entity to be taken down by mismanagement and the economic crisis?
Courtesy of the Washington Blade: http://washblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=24600
Author James Purdy, whose obscure but highly regarded works include Cabot Wright Begins and the gay-themed Eustace Chisholm and the Works, died Friday morning at a hospital in New Jersey. Though his exact age is unknown, he was in his mid 80s.
Gore Vidal, Dorothy Parker, and Tennessee Williams were among his biggest fans, but outside literary circles, Purdy was a relative unknown. According to the Associated Press, for the past several years he lived in a one-room walk-up apartment in Brooklyn, outside what he considered "the anesthetic, hypocritical, preppy, and stagnant New York literary establishment."
Purdy’s early works were given a critical lashing, considered "fifth-rate, avant-garde soap opera." The criticism caused him to leave official literary establishment -- the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
But his works would later be regarded as “genius,” particularly for his comic phrasing. Though many of his works have fallen out of print, several have been reissued in recent years.
Purdy told the Associated Press in 2005 that growing up he had been "exposed to everything.” He said his books reflected his deep understanding of sex, violence, race, class, familial cruelty, and romantic longing.
His works sharply divided critics. Of Cabot Wright, New York Times book critic Orville Prescott wrote that it was a “sick outpouring of a confused, adolescent, and distraught mind."
Days later, Susan Sontag countered, saying the book was a “fluid, immensely readable, personal and strong work by a writer from whom everyone who cares about literature has expected, and will continue to expect, a great deal."
A few years later, Eustace Chisholm became known as one of his landmark works, prompting the Times to write that it walked “that line of homosexual fiction which announces itself not by subject matter but by tone."
Courtesy of the Advocate.com: http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid75196.asp.
By Heather Cassell
San Francisco – Once robust, PlanetOut Inc., the leading LGBT lifestyle and entertainment media company, has given its independent registered public accounting firm “substantial doubt” about the company’s ability “to continue”.
PlanetOut, based in San Francisco, announced in a news release Wednesday, the audit report conducted by the unidentified accounting firm which wrapped up 2008 and was published in the company’s Annual Report, made its decision based on PlanetOut’s “continuing net losses and accumulated deficit”.
The accounting firm completed its audit report on December 31 of that same year and filed it with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 4, according to the news release.
PlanetOut announced its ongoing financial woes and troubled relationship with the SEC in compliance with the Nasdaq Marketplace Rule 4350(b)(1)(B).
In spite of PlanetOut’s declining health, the company continues to assess and adjust its operating plan in order to survive during the next 12 months, according to the news release. Some of those changes include: PlanetOut reduced its workforce by approximately 33 percent January 16 and it is in the process of merging with Here Media, Inc. and “certain other parties”, which commenced January 8 and is anticipated to be completed sometime during 2009’s second quarter, according to the news release.
PlanetOut insists that its current situation “does not represent any changes or amendment” to the company’s “fiscal 2008 financial statements or to its Annual Report” for its year ending December 31, 2008.
For more information, visit http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/prnews?Page=Quote&Ticker=LGBT or www.planetoutinc.com.
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