Pick up a copy of last month’s Philadelphia Gay News and turn to the publisher’s comments for an interesting read. Oh, what’s that? You don’t live in Philadelphia, and therefore have no access to copies of PGN? Well, that’s no problem: just click over to their website to read the commentary, which is all about how websites are inferior to paper.
“The king of LGBT media is your local LGBT publication,” publisher Mark Segal begins. “Just like the one you’re reading right now.” Lol!
Of blogs, he says, “few were started with actual journalists or writing professionals, and fewer with media business savvy.” Well, yes, that’s definitely true. Sometimes. Queerty’s editors and contributors have several books under their belts, and bylines at The Advocate, the Bay Area Reporter, SF Weekly, NBC Bay Area, After Elton, and High Country News (not to be confused with High Times). Not to brag or anything.
He continues, “many of them keep their material fresh with volunteers or by pumping the comments section.” What does that even mean! What is a comment pump and where do we get one? Is it anything like printing letters to the editor of the newspaper? Because heard that people used to do that, in olden times.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
We are certainly not above clickbait, of course, as the image to the right proves. We believe newspapers have a comparable philosophy about bleeding and leading.
Mark goes on, “The real problem is that, with little staff and volunteers, what they generated for the most part were the same stories being run by most other websites.”
Yes, we hear that complaint from a lot of print-defenders. For sure, we reblog and research and rewrite sometimes. But look at the front page of Queerty right now, and we suspect that you’ll find that most of the content is original reporting. Where it isn’t, we add new information to the original story, credit the source, and link back to them.
And you know what? The old fashioned news sources copy too. For every reblogger, there’s a print reporter who snatches a story from a blogger who was on the scene first, or bases an article off of a blogger’s research. Happens to us all the time. And it’s fine. We don’t mind. That’s the way the game works.
And then there’s this: “We’ve been around long enough that our communities know and trust us … We are also a vibrant part of the community, something hard to do in a virtual world.” Oh man, that’s the truth. Writing for the Internets is inescapably different from writing for a geographic group. Online, you’re talking to the world and getting more connections across the globe than reporters two decades ago could even have dreamed of. But when you write for print, you really get to know your subjects and see the impact that your reporting has on your meatspace community.
Is one better than the other? No, we don’t think so. But we also think it’s possible to build a powerful sense of community online, and that’s something we’re working on: over the years, Queerty kind of established a bad-kid attitude and didn’t always play with others. Things are going to be different now, but we don’t expect you to take our word for it. Over time, hopefully it’ll become as evident to Queerty readers as it is for print readers.
There’s been a lot of ink (and tears) spilled over role of print publications and online media for LGBTs lately. Here at Queerty, we feel that there’s room for both, just as there is for live theater, and its successor, television.
mark Segal
Matt:
What you left out was the writer of that piece (me) stated that Queerty was and now once again is one of my favorite fun web sites. And like you I also stated that we meaning print and web sites can coexist. We should celebrate what each of us brings to the LGBT community. I for one say …. Welcome back or should I say welcome home?
best,
Mark
Zack
sorry Queerty , but a blog never will rise the level of PGN.
Wally
What a fucking annoying tone. Does every single post have to reek of snark?
Red Meat
He is right, everything reported here is something a real news reporter printed on the newspaper ot on their site already. Blogs are nothing without them.
djjcm
And not even well-written snark? Snark is supposed to be funny. Throwing in an obligatory sassy comment every few sentences does not make something snarky or funny, it makes it lame. Also, this was just self-serving and dumb. #bringbackoldqueerty
matt baume
Haters gonna hate
Shannon1981
@matt baume: I’ll say what I said in another post, just in a much less long winded way: the regular readership of this place is full of the brand of snark that often goes waaaaay beyond nasty. Don’t worry…just the tone of the commenters here. We come here for the snark(or at least I do) and lack of censorship. It gets hateful here a lot, because lots of other places simply don’t allow it.
Cam
Sorry, but the print media let us down for a long time, giving us nothing but repetative interviews with the latest straight actor or actress talking about how “Neat” the gays are, and it really really would be awesome to kiss Brad Pitt or Scarlett Johansen in a sex scene and they’d only be a little grossed out at first.
The local papers like the PGN, and the new Washington Blade are doing some really hard hitting stories (Unlike the Old Blade) and are valuable.
Meanwhile social media and the blogs came along and really became a way to gage the mood of the community, the latest issues, and even a way to organize national events.
The local gay papers are good, but their reach only goes so far. I’m actually really grateful for sites like this. With or without snark.
Kevin_BGFH
Blogs can and often do have very respected journalists, and can and do engage in investigative journalism and original reporting. And not just blog attached to the website of a print publication. Ever pick up a print copy of the Huffington Post?
But the difference is that blogs as a medium have a very low barrier of entry, much lower than print. And while there are some schlocky, tabloidy print publications, there are proportionally a lot more blogs like that because it’s a lot easier for hack bloggers to get into the market.
I don’t mean that to sound like I’m ragging on those bloggers. Many of them don’t consider themselves to be journalists at all. They’re posting their own commentary of news, or photos, or simply an online diary. That’s not bad, just different. The problem is that so many print journalists look at that and believe that’s all there is to blogs and bloggers. Again, I point to the Huffington Post as an example of excellent journalism that exists solely in an online medium.
EdWoody
Do you really need to turn this into a contest? Can you not accept that you serve different aspects of the market, different people read different formats for different reasons, and there’s room for both of you in this world?
Brock Keeling
Disgusting to see yet another journo forget why they even got into the business in the first place. Mark Segal should — nay, needs — to find another career at this point. Sad.