Fewer Things Could Be a Bigger Loss
The death of big newspapers has been in the media for a while as old media tries to adapt and survive in this era of new media. People like myself- bloggers- get blamed for destroying newspapers, but that is really BS. Still, newspapers slow to realize the need to change their approach and how they monetize and function, find it hard to survive.
I love many bloggers and believe that the blogosphere is an important outlet for news and commentary, but I also believe we need objective and detail oriented journalists, that are most commonly found in a newspapers staff, and without them, we are far too close to the end of freedom. They play a critical role by objectively seek out out the story behind the story and connecting the dots in ways that allow us all to trust what we see and hear.
I’m less concerned when I hear about mainstream papers struggling, but it strikes fear in me when I read about a gay newspaper, especially one as old and legitimate as the Washington Blade going out of business.
I will never forget at 19 and 20, buying the Advocate, which at that time was a large newspaper like publication with a pink pull out center section. It was my first introduction to real news about the gay and lesbian community all over the country. I got to know the Blade in 1985, when some friends and I traveled to DC over the Columbus Day weekend for a road trip, and it has been a staple for me, in print or on the web ever since. Writers from the Blade w=ere often syndicated in the Pittsburgh paper, Pittsburgh’s Out, so even if I didn’t see the actual Blade, the product of the Blade was influencing my life.
I have a number of friends who were or still are involved in Pittsburgh’s Out, and I once was the photographer for the publication, but for me, it was never a real newspaper like the Blade. The Blade covered stories. Really covered them, and reported upon them in a way that few gay papers I have ever seen would do.
We, meaning the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities are at a very critical and tenuous point in our journey to equality. We need, now more than ever, people exploring the stories and explaining them from a GLBTQ perspective, with real fact and details painfully investigated and fact-checked. Without that, any real gay movement will die because we, as individuals will have no sense of what is right and what we need to do. We can not rely on the big-time gay bloggers always. They have their own agendas, which may be equality, but not necessarily, deeply researched, objective reporting of the facts and details of real lives and real stories.
Over the last year, I have often looked to the Blade for source material and as a reference on various things I’ve written about. The  Blade online was an excellent site. I honestly don’t know what we will do with out it.
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