Doug PollardAccomplishment of a Thousand
December 8th 2009 04:53
Sydney Star Observer Reaches its 1000th Edition This Week
In an era when gay papers are dropping like Calvins, thirty years and a thousand editions is a pretty impressive record. Longevity, however, is no guarantee of survival.
Some, like the UK Pink Paper, need a change of name, as they’re now internet-only. Some have vanished altogether, like the Washington Blade, after more than forty years of publication. Gay City News in New York has been without a competitor since July.
The virus ravaging print media is the internet and no one – not even Rupert Murdoch – has so far come up with a cure. Pay per view doesn’t work. Subscriptions don’t work. And advertising doesn’t work – at least, not well. Online display ad rates are low, and the small ads that originally built a free gay press have gone to dating sites. Being online pushes up costs and workload, and diminishes hard copy take-up.
Gay papers are trapped in a vice – and I don’t mean the fun kind. They must be online, not just to provide story ideas for lazy mainstream journalists to steal without attribution, but also to reach people too remote, too isolated, too scared, too closeted, to ever come within a cooee of a printed copy.
And they must provide news. Anyone can offer opinions, and thousands of bloggers do, but only paid, professional journalists generate original news content.
But do we need professional GAY journalists? Surely the mainstream press report gay issues now?
Remember Michael Neal case? After briefly flirting with responsible factual reportage, the Melbourne Age (generally reckoned as sympathetic and relatively objective on gay issues), went on an tabloid binge with unsubstantiated stories of ‘bug-chasers’ and ‘gift-givers’– for which, incidentally, the journalist concerned won awards and promotion. The Sydney Morning Herald and the Murdoch press followed suit.
In case you missed the point, straight journalists and mainstream papers have a different agenda, and it’s not about giving us a fair shake of the sauce bottle. Not if that might get in the way of a Walkley.
We still need a gay press, with gay journalists, working in media that are not driven solely by the needs of advertisers, or a rich owners need to find his boyfriends something to do.
Gay & Lesbian Community Publishing Limited, publishers of Sydney Star Observer, is “owned by members of and operated for the gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and queer communities”. The shareholders are all intimately connected with other GLBTI organisations, giving the paper a unique relationship to the community it serves, and a unique strength.
And in keeping with the current fashion for modern, long-term, stable gay relationships, we’ve also started a family, giving birth to Southern Star in October 2008. Who knows what else is to come?
Maybe this is just a phase we have to get through. Maybe technology will rescue what it's currently destroying. E-readers are becoming available, combining the convenience and portability of print – and the look of the printed page - with the immediacy and reach of the internet. They’re not quite good enough yet, but could they become the platform that will carry papers like the twin Stars through the next thousand editions? Watch this space.
| 39 |
| Vote |
Add Comments
Read More
Comments (1)
