Media professionals and LGBT activists were shocked Monday morning by news that the major gay publications in four cities, including the nation’s oldest gay newspaper, had shut down after the companies that published the papers, Window Media and Unite Media, were forced to close by the Small Business Administration—the federal agency that oversaw the companies in bankruptcy proceedings.

LGBTQ news site Project Q Atlanta vows to fill the void left by the loss of Southern Voice.
A south Florida website will quickly launch advertising/entertainment publications to attract advertisers and readers from Unite Media’s two shuttered publications there

The two companies published Washington Blade in DC—a gay institution that celebrated its 40th anniversary last month and Southern Voice (SoVo) in Atlanta, along with South Florida Blade and Houston Voice. The companies also published weekly gay entertainment/bar magazines in Atlanta and south Florida.

All the publication were immediately closed down, prompting questions about why it had happened so quickly while negotiations to purchase some of the properties were underway.

“We found out when two of the corporate officers were waiting for us when we got to work this morning,” Kevin Naff, editor of Washington Blade, is quoted by New York Times. “It’s not a complete surprise. The abruptness of it was what was surprising.”

The paper’s longest-lasting reporter said he was surprised. “It’s a shock. I’m almost speechless, really,” Lou Chibbaro Jr. told the Washington Post’s Paul Schwartzman.

Chibbaro had been a Blade reporter since 1976, “covering the full arc of the country's gay-rights movement, from early marches through the rise of AIDS and on to the latest battles over legalizing same-sex marriage,” Schwarzman writes. During the Blade’s 40th Anniversary celebrations last month, Chibbaro was profiled by both the Post and NPR.

As a gay media era ends, former staffers work to rebuild from the ashes [contd.]

Although reports of the closure SoVo had already been widely circulated early Monday morning, Washington Blade staff confirmed the concurrent demise of their paper with a Twitter posting just before noon: “Wash Blade, like all Window Media publications, is closing today. Thanks support. (Keep following us for dvlpmnts.)”

Condolences poured out on Twitter streams yesterday. From Victory Fund: “Victory salutes our friends at @WashingtonBlade for 40 years of service to the #LGBT community. This is a sad day.” From Stonewall Democrats: “Thanks @WashingtonBlade for your great coverage the last 40 years. Look forward to see what’s next.”

The paper’s staff responded later in the day: “To everyone who’s expressing gratitude, love and support: Thank you. You’re helping stem the tears”

In Atlanta, SoVo staffers didn’t even get a personal visit from company representatives. They discovered they no longer had jobs through a note posted on the locked door of the SoVo offices. It said, “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.”

"Certainly we knew finances were tight, but none of us were expecting this today," SoVo editor Douglas-Brown said, according to CNN.

Douglas-Brown, who had worked at the paper for 12 years spent her day greeting staffers at the office so they wouldn’t find the note alone. The note on the door advised staff to return Wednesday with boxes to retrieve personal items from the offices.

Project Q Atlanta compiled some of the web responses to SoVo’s demise.

Blade staff were briefly allowed into their former offices Monday to retrieve personal items. Washington City Paper photos by Darrow Montgomery

But only hours after the demise of the papers, plans were announced by former staffers and others businesses to launch new gay newspapers in Washington, DC and south Florida to replace the Washington Blade and South Florida Blade. The owner of an Atlanta LGBT website, Project Q Atlanta, said he would quickly ramp up staff to help fill the void left the exit of SoVo’s and its brother bar-guide magazine, David.

In DC, as he and other staff rushed to clear personal items from the Washington Blade offices, Naff told reporters that he and the staff of the paper planned to quickly launch a new newspaper with a different name, but one that would  continue with the kind of journalism—based on solid local reporting—for which the Blade was noted.

Update: On Tuesday afternoon, Washington Post filed this report:

Former staffers at the now-defunct Washington Blade say they're planning to publish a revived edition of the gay weekly on Friday, although they're not sure what name they will use or how they will print the paper.

“The staff is united,” Naff told Washington City Paper yesterday. “We’re all together. Our first meeting for our new venture is tomorrow morning.”

Washington City Paper reporter Amanda Hess was at the Blade offices in the National Press Club building as staff scrambled to retrieve their belongings:

Reporters have been calling the office all morning in search of a comment, having only heard confirmation of the paper’s closure via Tweet. Finally, Editor-In-Chief Kevin Naff comes outside to make a statement. Hold on—he has to pee. When he returns from the bathroom, he addresses reporters in front of the Blade’s glass-enclosed offices. Inside, a couple of Window Media staffers can be seen shuffling around a glass conference room, hard at work dismantling the newspaper. One of them wears an eye-patch. “I can’t speak on behalf of the company, and I can’t speak here,” Naff says. So the group heads around the corner, where Naff stands in front of another large window looking in on Window brass. “You can refer to me as the former editor of the Blade,” Naff says. When he returns from the bathroom, he addresses reporters in front of the Blade’s glass-enclosed offices. Inside, a couple of Window Media staffers can be seen shuffling around a glass conference room, hard at work dismantling the newspaper. One of them wears an eye-patch. “I can’t speak on behalf of the company, and I can’t speak here,” Naff says. So the group heads around the corner, where Naff stands in front of another large window looking in on Window brass. “You can refer to me as the former editor of the Blade,” Naff says.

Washington Post reports on reaction to the demise of the paper:

News of the closure shocked city council members and staffers at the John A. Wilson Building this morning, underscoring the newspaper's clout with the city's governing class. Several council members and staffers said the Blade was a crucial resource not only for the gay community, but also for politicians running for elective office looking to reach out to a vital voting bloc.

Gay City News talked to two former staffers who helped create and cement Washington Blade’s solid reputation for good reporting:

“I’m very saddened and distressed,” said Don Michaels, an original owner and publisher of the Washington Blade. “To me, the Blade has always had value in this community. I just find it unbelievable that the SBA wouldn’t accept an offer from somebody or that somebody in this community wouldn’t step forward.… I know the media climate is bad, but still the Blade has history, a valuable history.”

Lisa Keen, who worked at the Blade from 1981 to 2001, leaving as its editor in chief and an owner, said, “I’m totally shocked and in somewhat of a state of disbelief. If it is true, it’s shocking and sad... I am just beginning to read this news.”

There was similar shock in Atlanta, where SoVo had reported on the city’s LGBT communities for 21 years. Atlanta Journal Constitution quotes J. Sheffield, events manager of the Atlanta Pride Committee, which sponsors the annual gay pride festivities, who said, “Southern Voice is an institution in this community and it will be missed.”

Sheffield wasn’t ready to consider what might replace it. “I kind of feel like now is the time to give Southern Voice the reverence they deserve,” Sheffield told AJC. “There will never be another Southern Voice.”

The Atlanta daily reports:

Though it struggled to turn a profit, SoVo remained relevant to the end, doggedly reporting on the controversial September raid of the Atlanta Eagle leather bar.

"I worry whether we'll get that kind of in-depth reporting again on stories of interest to our community," said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality. "Hopefully Project Q Atlanta will step up to fill the void."

The nascent online magazine, founded in Sept. 2008 by former SoVo editor Matt Hennie, now has the Atlanta gay media market cornered.

“We have some big shoes to fill,” said Hennie, who plans to try. “We intend to ramp up our coverage to better serve the community.”

Former SoVo columnist Cindy Abel, who is now a board member with the Victory Fund, said it will be difficult for anyone to fully replace the newspaper. “They had professional reporters who dug deep,” she told AJC. “Frankly, it all came down to economics, and what happened to Southern Voice has happened to a lot of other minority publications. Now you wonder who's going to cover these stories.”

Collin Kelly, managing editor Atlanta INtown Paper, another weekly, also expressed his regret:

Southern Voice’s coverage of the mayoral race and the police raid on the Atlanta Eagle bar — to name just two issues — was top notch, in depth and presented a balanced view that other dailies and weeklies could only hope to attain. David was the go-to-guide for entertainment, clubbing and laughing at columnists like Topher Payne and Michael Alvear. That both of these publications disappeared in one day in Atlanta is heartbreaking.

In his article in the Post, Schwartzman writes that the Washington Blade “chronicled the coming-out of the capital's gay community”. He writes that the paper “was born amid the idealism of 1960s street protests”, but died Monday as another “victim of the unforgiving realities of the nation’s sagging newspaper industry.”

The Washington Blade and SoVo are two of the country’s oldest gay papers, but along the way, both papers were swallowed up as parts what would become the nation’s largest gay publishing empire, which at one point published a national magazine, Genre, and newspapers and magazines in six cities, including New York City and Boston.

New York Times describes the shaky foundations on which that empire was built:

The publications belonged to Window Media and Unite Media. The parent companies had been owned by the Avalon Equity Fund, which bought them with assistance from the Small Business Administration. Last year, the SBA said Avalon did not meet certain capital requirements, and took control of the fund as a court-appointed receiver. It sought unsuccessfully to sell the assets.

In a statement released on Monday, the SBA. said Window and Unite had ceased publication. It also said, “The SBA. as receiver for Avalon does not anticipate any recovery on Avalon’s investment totaling more than $7 million in Window/Unite Media.” The agency recently closed another publication controlled by Avalon, Genre magazine.

In New York’s Gay City News, Duncan Osborne explained the complex network of businesses involved in ownership of the papers:

While the Washington Blade and the Southern Voice appeared to be profitable for much of their history, the newspapers struggled after William Waybourn and Chris Crain bought the Voice in 1996 and the Blade in 2001. While Crain and Waybourn had ambitious plans for building a gay media empire, the deals they made put substantial debt on the papers’ balance sheets that made it impossible for the publications to report a profit.

In 2001, they were rescued by Avalon [Equity Partners], headed by David W. Unger and Benjamin E. Brandes, Avalon’s founders and managing partners, when it bought in as the majority owner. Avalon went on to establish the additional business units. …

Avalon was licensed by the federal Small Business Administration (SBA) as a small business investment corporation in 2000 and borrowed just over $39 million from the federal agency to invest in the gay media properties, two small cable providers, and a phone company…

As Gay City News reported in February, Avalon was forced into receivership last year after it violated its SBA contract that required it to maintain a certain level of private funding. The SBA took over the assets and was looking to liquidate them to recover as much of the $39 million as possible. …

SBA said yesterday that it will issue a statement on the closure later this week, but in the meantime, questions have arisen about the suddenness of the shutdown.

SBA was negotiating with buyers for at least two of the papers, Washington Blade and South Florida Blade. Both of the businessmen who had hoped to buy the papers expressed surprise at their sudden shutdown.

In Washington, Nicholas F. Benton, the well known owner of Falls Church News Press, had been negotiating with SBA to buy the Washington Blade. In a press release from his office, Benton said Tuesday that his company had been preparing for “a seamless perpetuation of the nation's oldest gay community newspaper.” He expressed surprise that SBA had closed the paper so quickly, and without informing him:

“Everything was in place, although moving slowly, to make the seamless transition we hoped for. But I remain unaware of what happened, and as a result of Monday’s events, the Blade is gone after 40 years of publication, its employees are out of work, and the nation’s and region's LGBT community has been stripped of an invaluable institution,” Benton said.

Naff and the former staff of the Washington Blade hadn’t revealed details of their plans for a Blade replacement newspaper, or of possible financial partners in the venture, but City Paper notes, “The Blade as a standalone publication runs a profit; however, not enough of a profit to keep its debt-troubled parent company, Window Media, in the black.”

After meeting with former staff at a DC coffee shop Tuesday morning, Naff told the Post that they’re not sure what their new paper will be called or even how they’ll print it, but he vowed to be out with something on Friday that would include an investigation of the Blade’s demise.

“It could be a four-page Kinko's job, it could be an eight-page professionally printed paper, we're still figuring it out,” Naff told the Post. “It’s to let people know we're still here, and still reporting the news.”

According to the Post, Naff told his reporting staff—now volunteers—to find out why the SBA did not accept offers made by two prospective publishers earlier this year to buy the Blade.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the DC delegate to Congress, pledged Monday to support the effort to recreate the Blade in any way she could. “Unlike many of today's publications, the Blade has been an essential resource, not simply a redundant echo among today's many media fighting for air,” Norton said in a statement. “The loss of the Blade is also a loss for every person who wants to be well informed. Since I have been in Congress, the Blade has been a weekly must-read for me.”

To the south in Miami, things were moving even more quickly to re-establish the gay publications there, although there’s little sign that the new offerings would present the kind of hard news that the Washington Blade was known for.

Miami Herald’s Steve Rothaus reports that the owner of a south Florida gay advertisement/entertainment website had been negotiating to buy 411 magazine, the glossy gay bar and entertainment guide owned by Unite, along with South Florida Blade,

Multimedia Platforms of Oakland Park, FL which co-owns the website Mark’s List put $250,000 in escrow to be used for purchase of the two publications, Rothaus reports. But after the owners of Window/Unite Media “stopped putting money” into the company’s properties, the Mark’s List partners decided, “we don't need them anymore,” according to Mark Haines, founder of Mark’s List, who recently sold half his interest in the site to Multimedia Partners.

The website’s owners decided to launch publications with new names, and to use all of the money they had put in escrow for the new publications.

They plan to launch a bar-guide replacement for 411 next week which will be called Mark’s List Magazine.

“Our focus for the future, and the importance of this transaction, is owning the No. 1 LGBT website,” Bobby Blair, managing partner and founder of Multimedia Platforms, told Rothaus. “It will certainly sustain our print operation and also will grow," Blair predicted.

“We have everything we need,” Haines said. “We have all the contacts, telephone numbers, everything we need to go forward.”

In a letter posted at Mark’s List, 411/Blade editor Sheri Elfman writes, “The entire staff of 411 and South Florida Blade are now employed by Multimedia Platforms, LLC.”

Haines writes in a press release, “The staff has been locked out of their office building, however the magazine will continue to publish. This week's magazine was ready for print and will appear on newsstands as 411, a property of Unite Media. Next week the magazine will publish as Mark’s List Magazine, a property of Multimedia Platforms LLC.  All of your favorite features in 411 will move over to the new publication.” 

An unnamed bi-weekly newsprint publication to replace South Florida Blade is also planned, but Blair indicated to Rothaus that its focus would shift away from news reporting toward feature stories.

“We’re going to make sure it becomes more topical, more lifestyle oriented, and more specific to South Florida,” Blair told Rothaus. He described a paper that would focus on advertiser-friendly features including “a real estate section, movie reviews, restaurant reviews”.

Source: Norton Pledges Support for New Gay Newspaper | Washington Post
Gay community mourns loss of Southern Voice | Atlanta Journal Constitution
Washington Blade Shuttered | Gay City News
Washington Blade Newspaper Closes | New York Times
Mark’s List to launch magazine, newspaper after South Florida Blade publisher shuts down | Miami Herald

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