As if the problems inside gay print media weren’t bad enough, a cadre Chicago Free Press staffers — including editor-in-chief Matt Simonette — have walked off the job after going unpaid by publisher Rainbow Media.
Gone are the art director, designer, and most of the writers, says Simonette. With a weekly circulation in the twenty-thousands and declining ad revenues, the Free Press had to decide between layoffs and letting staffers go without pay. “The last two to three payrolls, we’ve been having issues from a cash-flow standpoint,” says publisher David Costanzo. “Over the last two payrolls, we had to delay some paychecks.” (Simonette says contributors haven’t been paid since mid-November and staffers are owed their Dec. 15 paychecks.)
Is this the death knell of the Free Press? If you’re a betting man, you might want to wager Yes. While we haven’t taken a look at the paper’s books, as we’ve seen over and over in the past few months, gay media’s decline is snowballing. We just learned Window Media, publisher of the Washington Blade and David, was losing almost $200,000 per month at the end and had just $2,100 left in a checking account.
trickstertara
Good for them. The independent paper I wrote for in St. Louis *still* owes me money and they folded in August. No write should have to work for free.
Lady Ga-Gasp
If you are a local gay rag without a strong online component and a robust reader base, god help you. Its sad to see these papers all going south.
FG
The problem was the publisher and his personal and business practices -their revenue could have been good – the editorial and news coverage (and community readership) was high.
Magnus67
Chicago has two glbt weekly papers: Chicago Free Press and Windy City Times, plus a weekly magazine called–unimaginatively–Gay Chicago Magazine. Aside from the business and personal dramas referred to by FG in #3, the CFP seemed to be available in more places throughout the city & surrounding ‘burbs such as Oak Park and Evanston. Competition for ad dollars has been fierce, and folks have been wondering if the trio would be able to weather the economic slump.. All three are free–CFP seemed to have had the edge in readership but WCT seemed to lead in big ads…hard to tell.
Rumors of misspent dollars and poor planning have been simmering about CFP’s publisher(s), but it wasn’t apparent in the paper; very good writers & news coverage never fouled up whatever was screwed up in the budget.
Prediction: No way will CFP be able to recover without their excellent staff on board. Stiffing your employees week after week is just bad karma. Chicagoans have very long memories for such bullshite. I wish all the former CFPers a safer, saner spot to land.
Keith Kimmel
I wonder when people are really going to figure out whats going on here.
Homos are well-known, as of late, for not sticking together and not protecting our own. We are at war here, a war for our very survival. Today, its Uganda. Think it couldnt happen here? Sure, maybe they wont kill us here. That probably wouldnt fly even with our heartless conservatives. But strip us of our rights? Put us at a further disadvantage? You bet.
Far too many of us will knowingly spend money at establishments that we know are unfriendly to us. We dont supoort our own media, then we bitch about the bias of the mainstream media. Both of these are undertaken because we as a community seem to be too damned lazy to look out for our own good. As long as we still have our bars and can screw, we’re happy.
Sometimes – no, make that often – I am ashamed to be a faggot with ya’all.