UPDATE: Southern Voice, David shut down
November 16, 2009 at 9:10 am by Thomas Wheatley in News
Richard Eldredge tweets that the Southern Voice and David, Atlanta’s leading gay publications, have been shut down. Eldredge says staffers came to work today to find the locks changed.
In February, the NYC-based Gay City News reported that the Avalon Equity Fund, a parent company majority shareholder in SoVo, Washington Blade and several other gay publications’ parent company Unite Media, had been forced into liquidation and faced federal receivership. People familiar with the matter recently told CL they were unaware of the company’s fate. (Project Q Atlanta’s been following the story closely.)
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.”
SoVo News Editor Dyana Bagby tells CL that a news budget had been prepared for this week’s issue. She covered two events this weekend and was going to write up articles for the publication.
“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.”
Since its founding nearly 21 years ago, SoVo has been the strongest voice covering Atlanta’s gay community. Bagby, a dogged reporter who offered clear and concise reporting of the recent Atlanta Eagle raid and other LGBT issues, helped bolster SoVo’s online presence. Staff Writer Matt Schafer could commonly be found in the Gold Dome press box covering policy decisions in a state that, by and large, hasn’t exactly been friendly to gay rights. Douglas-Brown says the paper employed approximately 20 people.
“No one was in it just for the job,” Douglas-Brown says. “Everybody was in it for the cause too, in their own ways. People have put up with a lot difficulties over the past year, and have hung in there because they cared. It’s tragic and I’m desperately sorry it ended this way, especially for the people who’ve worked so hard.
She continues: “[The closure] didn’t happen because of a lack of need for our publications. It didn’t happen because of a lack of hard dedicated work by local staff. And that’s the shame of it…It’s a sad tale, how it all came crashing down.”
UPDATE: Project Q Atlanta posts a photo of the one-page announcement that greeted the publications’ staffers.
The text reads:
It is with GREAT regret that we must inform you that effective immediately, the operations of Window Media, LLC and Unite Media, LLC have closed down.
Please return to this office on WEDNESDAY, November 18th, 2009 at 11:00 AM to collect personal belongings and to receive information on your separation stipulations. Please bring boxes and/or containers that will allow you to collect all your personal belongings at one time.
Regretfully,
Steve Myers
Mike Kitchens
Myers is the publisher. Kitchens, Project Q reports, is a longtime Window Media executive. We’re trying to touch base with Unite Media and Window Media. More to come.
UPDATE: Erik Wemple of the Washington City Paper, CL’s sister publication, reports that Washington Blade staffers will launch a new publication, minus the debt load of its former parent company.
UPDATE: Kristi Swartz of the AJC offers a thorough rundown of Window Media’s financial woes, including quotes from former SoVo staffers about the closure.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Good God. I hope this doesn’t portend the future for other non-mainstream media publications in Atlanta (like this one). Who will fill up the slack that AJC won’t take up?
November 16th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Only one phrase can some up what has happened: Chickens come home to roost.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
G., that’s “sum up,” you know, like math?
November 16th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
G: Please explain.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Yes Mark, I know. However, when I realized how dumb I sound, it was too late to change it. But yeah, you get what I was trying to say. And rptrcub, look up the phrase if you don’t know what it means.
November 16th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
where were the unions?
November 16th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I don’t know about chickens and roosting with this one. I am surprised this one went down without a fight, or a peep, from the parent company.
It’s tough to find a major topic in Atlanta that SoVo hasn’t covered. Atlanta has been trying to cling on to some shred of an identity for the last decade. This isn’t going to help. I hope the SoVo and David contributors can recoup and find their way back into the fray.
November 16th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
What about the Window Media archives?
Over the years publications that target gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender audiences have come and gone – witness today’s tumult at Window Media LLC. A key newsweekly, The Washington Blade, is no more after celebrating its 40th anniversary last month.
There’s one very important angle that gets overlooked when minority media outlets go out of existence: archives. In today’s digital world, what happens to the online archives? Earlier this year the New York Blade shut down and all its online searchable back issues vanished. The same thing happened when Lesbian Gay New York (LGNY) declared bankruptcy – years of issues that had been available and searchable online were gone. A new publication took up where LGNY left off – Gay City News – but what about all that community history, the public record of political and cultural matters? In the wake of the Washington Blade’s demise there are reports that another publication may arise, perhaps staffed with former Blade employees. I sure hope so – gay community publications have a vital role to play even in an era when major media outlets have pumped up their coverage of sexual minority issues. I also hope Window Media LLC’s owners/shareholders will keep the Washington Blade, Southern Voice, South Florida Blade, etc. archives – online and otherwise –available. Publisher, editors, writers – and GLBT com-munities – have a responsibility to ensure that such archives remain intact and widely accessible.
November 16th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Just out of curiousity what does the chickens coming home to roust have to do with them being shut down? I’ve seen it said in a few other places outside of CL.
I understand the phrase just not to context in which it is being used here.
November 16th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I think the chickens coming home to roost is a redneck way of saying God got you back and I burn crosses in my spare time.
November 16th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Bill I think that is a completely valid point. I hope all of this intellectual property doesn’t go to waste.
November 16th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
where were the unicorns?
November 16th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
@Bill Dobbs – I imagine that the archives would be worth something, and would be auctioned or sold at some point. Media outlets probably have more “intel” than the CIA. It’s not just the articles that were actually published, but also the notes going into those, and the photo files. I’m willing to bet that someone would pay good money to get their hands on all that…
November 17th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Actually I found out why that Chickens coming home comments keeps getting thrown around. Some guy named Todd Evans was quoted as saying it. It was in reference to Window Media buying up failing competitors and then failing themselves. I don’t think it was a redneck comment. I’ve linked the AJC article with it but it popped up in a couple other places.
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/southern-voice-longtime-gay-199719.html
November 18th, 2009 at 10:42 am
The end of an era; the end of an error.
As one of the many former publishers of Sovo and David (April-November 2008) in the past two years, I was only surprised that the publications, including the Washington Blade and South Florida Blade had continued to print until last week. The Atlanta publications had been known as a revolving door for many years except for a handful of loyal staffers misguided by management for years.
Unlike other media facing bankruptcy and liquidation, the economic downturn is only a minor cause to this event. The parent company Window Media LLC went into receivership shortly after I joined the publications. Those reasons are well documented.
The demise of the largest weekly gay publishing company in America directly falls on the shoulders of the executives mismanaging the company and Avalon Equities.
The solutions for the local markets were clear but the financial problems would not be corrected.
Window Media LLC incorrectly assumed that a group of alternative weeklies could use a corporate financial model to grow its business and attract new investors. It was either folly or ego or a little of both that eventually brought down major publications in important markets.
On the other hand perhaps the era has passed. In so many parts of the country the traditional lines between gay and straight have blurred to the point where the alternative dailies remaining will approach the GLTB demographic as an important growth market.
The demise of Window Media LLC was a long time in coming and well earned.
November 19th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
The best thing that could have possibly happened. Those two magazines have maintained an air of negative journalism toward mainstream society for as long as I’ve been reading them. With stories that focus primarily on negative events (the raid at The Eagle, arrests in Piedmont Park AFTER park hours, the shutting down of Backstreet, Metro, and The Phoenix), these papers have failed to adequately report the positive strides that our community has made over the years. Thank God these publications are gone. Here’s hoping the next attempt at reporting gay and lesbian news is from a staff a bit more positive.