Etoile
Mod, 2003-2015
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2000
- Posts
- 17,049
The Washington DC gay community was stunned on Monday morning when we saw the Washington Blade twitter account announce that the Blade had folded.
Turns out it was the corporate owners, Window Media, that closed it, along with the Southern Voice and other gay papers. When the SoVo staff showed up on Monday morning, there was a note on the door announcing the paper's closure, and saying they should come back Wednesday to pick up their stuff. Unfortunately I don't know much about the SoVo or other papers, but I can tell you what's happening in Washington.
First of all, the Blade has been around for 40 years. It started in 1969 as "The Gay Blade" and it was the oldest gay newspaper in the country. It got sold to Window Media in 2001, and personally I think it went downhill a bit, but it was still an excellent paper...just not as good as it HAD been.
Window was having financial troubles. Big-time financial troubles. The Blade was highly profitable and was pulling its own weight as well as that of the other papers in the Window stable. There had been an offer from a local DC businessman to buy the Blade from the struggling Window, but Window turned him down. And folded the paper.
There was a "tweetup" planned for this past Wednesday anyway. What started as a small event got huge as soon as the closure was announced - way beyond just Twitter people. I went and had a great time, got to meet the publisher and the editor and the news editor and lots of great people.
There's a new gay paper in town now. It's the DC Agenda, and it's run by the people who ran the Blade. They aren't allowed to keep the name (which disappoints me) but they're still producing great work. Amazingly, they produced a paper THIS FRIDAY. Friday was always the release day for the Blade, but they lost all their previous work - this Friday's publication was started on MONDAY, and produced amid the tears of losing their jobs. They're all working as volunteers for now.
I picked up two copies of the DC Agenda yesterday. It's small, 11x17, and only 8 pages - most of which are ads. But those ads are what will keep the Agenda moving. When people bought them, they were sending their money to a completely new company, a new venture, a new paper. But they have SO MUCH FAITH in the ex-Blade staff that they were willing to fork over the cash. The paper is selling "virtual bricks" at SaveTheBlade.com - I gave them $5 because it's what I can afford, even though I've gotten SO much more value from the Blade over the years.
Right now the ex-Blade folks are working to save the 40 years of archives that were stored at their old offices. They want to move them to a space that won't be closed off to them if another crisis happens, and hopefully a space where the public can access them.
Talk about a phoenix rising from the ashes. Nothing is as amazing as what the DC Agenda staff is doing.
Turns out it was the corporate owners, Window Media, that closed it, along with the Southern Voice and other gay papers. When the SoVo staff showed up on Monday morning, there was a note on the door announcing the paper's closure, and saying they should come back Wednesday to pick up their stuff. Unfortunately I don't know much about the SoVo or other papers, but I can tell you what's happening in Washington.
First of all, the Blade has been around for 40 years. It started in 1969 as "The Gay Blade" and it was the oldest gay newspaper in the country. It got sold to Window Media in 2001, and personally I think it went downhill a bit, but it was still an excellent paper...just not as good as it HAD been.
Window was having financial troubles. Big-time financial troubles. The Blade was highly profitable and was pulling its own weight as well as that of the other papers in the Window stable. There had been an offer from a local DC businessman to buy the Blade from the struggling Window, but Window turned him down. And folded the paper.
There was a "tweetup" planned for this past Wednesday anyway. What started as a small event got huge as soon as the closure was announced - way beyond just Twitter people. I went and had a great time, got to meet the publisher and the editor and the news editor and lots of great people.
There's a new gay paper in town now. It's the DC Agenda, and it's run by the people who ran the Blade. They aren't allowed to keep the name (which disappoints me) but they're still producing great work. Amazingly, they produced a paper THIS FRIDAY. Friday was always the release day for the Blade, but they lost all their previous work - this Friday's publication was started on MONDAY, and produced amid the tears of losing their jobs. They're all working as volunteers for now.
I picked up two copies of the DC Agenda yesterday. It's small, 11x17, and only 8 pages - most of which are ads. But those ads are what will keep the Agenda moving. When people bought them, they were sending their money to a completely new company, a new venture, a new paper. But they have SO MUCH FAITH in the ex-Blade staff that they were willing to fork over the cash. The paper is selling "virtual bricks" at SaveTheBlade.com - I gave them $5 because it's what I can afford, even though I've gotten SO much more value from the Blade over the years.
Right now the ex-Blade folks are working to save the 40 years of archives that were stored at their old offices. They want to move them to a space that won't be closed off to them if another crisis happens, and hopefully a space where the public can access them.
Talk about a phoenix rising from the ashes. Nothing is as amazing as what the DC Agenda staff is doing.
