The situation is pretty dire and it is probably best I don’t sugarcoat it. Salt Lake City is perilously close to losing its gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender news source. We have lost tens of thousands of dollars this year. Our reserve fund is depleted. We, in fact, had to take out a loan to cover expenses and get the last issue printed. I hope not to do that again…
Recent events have shown that there is a great need for QSaltLake. No other media source would have been able to dig deep enough to find and expose the recent assaults in our community. We are continuing to work on other angles to the stories that will never be addressed by mainstream media… What other media source will reach our community on safety, health and other issues relevant to our community?”
– QSaltLake editor Michael Aaron discussing the financial peril of his LGBT publication and what supporters can do to help.
Emma(mtf)
Protip – printed media is dead. Make a webzine and I’ll read it, being from SLC and caring about this stuff.
Michael Aaron
@Emma(mtf): Hey Emma. Please feel free to read our online edition – aka webzine – at http://qsaltlake.com/?p=5350. So the question now is: how do we get advertisers to believe that your reading it online benefits them to the same degree a print edition does? Or are you willing to pay to read it?
I guess that’s the same question all news organizations are pondering.
Michael Aaron
Thanks, Queerty for the exposure! We are very hopeful we can turn this around, with support from the community.
[email protected]
Sucks for SLC (I totally sympathize), but DAYUM! Michael is HAWT! Anyone got his digits?!
Josh
@Emma(mtf): I agree. just having a website would make it easier, eliminate the cost of gas, paper, ink….etc. And it would make it readily available to people all over the world. Get with 2011. Save paper. To say we, as a community, are screwed just because we lose a paper…Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome. But the statement in and of itself is just a bit dramatic. We’re still here. We’re still family, and we always will be. When something happens, everybody will still learn about it the same way they always have…By hearing it from somebody, who heard it from somebody, who heard it from the cousin of somebody who claimed to have been there.
Josh H
How about throwing a couple fundraisers at the local bars that give out the magazine? If it is done well, focusing on bringing the community out and together, it could show more advertisers that we are a large money spending force. That might help bring in some sponsors/donations.
Just an idea.
Jim Hlavac
Newsweek was sold for a dollar; every city is down to one newspaper, which grow thinner and falls in circulation. Go E-Queer, and be done with it; save a tree and the landfill space.
Walmartah Anita Bea Neutered
Hi,
I like the online version most of the time, QSaltLake.com.Todays example of what can be improved with the online version is: Picasso on my Wall in Literature Page, The subtitles and related works go horizontally down the page instead of giving the reader a chance to choose in a box or or smaller area at top of page. So instead of being able to enjoy the reading, the reader is scrolling down to the bottom of the page and deciding which or if any of the subtitles to focus on.
Penis Von lesbian
There will be a replacement bar rag that pops up– there always is. Before QSalt Lake, there was another paper; before that one, another.
Brad
There’s another Salt Lake Blog called Salty I think is much better for local news. And at least itr covered the dane Hall fiasco honestly, which the other gay blogs are hiding from.
Mike
I can sympathize with Salt Lake’s predicament. We run the GLBT magazine for six states in the Deep South (for the states of Arkansas, Mississippi, and other areas it is the only GLBT publication and by far the longest-lived GLBT endeavor to occur here). We celebrated our first anniversary this month but ad sales can be truly horrible. Many businesses don’t want to lose straight business by advertising in a GLBT magazine, and then there’s the divisive issue of how many GLBT businesses either 1) can buy ads considering the economy or 2) even want to due to petty drama or personality clashes. We’ve cut our distribution quite a bit and there is obviously a huge demand in terms of readers but it’s the advertising that kills us every time…and takes up a lot of my time as publisher to try to get the ad sales sold.
It’d be one thing if there were a lot of competing publications and that’s why ad sales can’t turn a profit. But when you’re the only thing like it around? I don’t get it.
michael_aaron
I’m happy to say that we made it through that year, and here we are five years later thriving, regardless of the naysayers. Thanks!