Southern Voice ceases publication

Gay activists were pushing the federal government to pay more attention to AIDS and state governments to pay less attention to enforcing sodomy laws back in March of 1988.

That month, when the first issue of the Southern Voice hit newsstands, gay bars in the city were cruised by a sadistic gay-basher known as “Handcuff Man,” who allegedly assaulted 100 men, mostly gay hustlers, while city police mostly looked the other way.

The Voice held Atlanta police accountable when the rest of the media did not, setting a tone for the Atlanta alternative newspaper that sustained it through 21 years of reporting on and advocating for gay causes and the Atlanta gay community.

Monday the newspaper was shuttered without warning by its Washington, D.C.-based publisher, leaving some in Atlanta's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community wondering what will fill the void.

"It's very sad," said J. Sheffield, events manager of Atlanta Pride. "Southern Voice is an institution in this community and it will be missed."

Though it struggled to turn a profit, SoVo, with a circulation of about 25,000 remained relevant to the end, doggedly reporting on the late summer raid of the Atlanta Eagle leather bar.

It was the only publication to print full text of the anonymous complaints which prompted the controversial raid, providing much-needed context.

"I worry whether we'll get that kind of in-depth reporting again on stories of interest to our community," said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality. "Hopefully Project Q Atlanta will step up to fill the void."

"They had professional reporters who dug deep," said former SoVo columnist Cindy Abel, a board member with the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. "Frankly, it all came down to economics, and what happened to Southern Voice has happened to a lot of other minority publications. Now you wonder who's going to cover these stories."

But others wondered if the Voice hadn't lost its voice, or at least its platform, because many of the gay rights matters it has reported on and advocated in the past two decades are increasingly being covered by a mainstream media that once ignored them.

"In the early days, all the shouting was about not being invisible," said Gary Kaupman, who worked at the paper in the early days when it was found by a lesbian couple, Christina Cash and Leigh VanderEls.

"But we're not invisible anymore," Kaupman said. "And I don't mean to be harsh, but if I can see myself reflected fairly decently these days in the mainstream press, something of the quality of the New York Times, why would I pick up the Southern Voice?"

Southern's owner, Washington, D.C.-based Window Media LLC, closed SoVo and a handful of other gay publications nationwide over the weekend, after years of struggling financially and being forced into receivership earlier this year by the Small Business Administration.

Many staffers didn't find out until they arrived at the paper's office off Briarcliff Road early Monday to find the door locked and a sign posted on the front: "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," the sign read.

Editor Laura Douglas-Brown said she got a call from a page designer at 7:30 a.m. Monday. "I came out here because I didn't want anybody to come and read the sign and be by themselves," Douglas-Brown said.

Staff members have been asked to attend a meeting Wednesday at 11 a.m., at which separation stipulations will be discussed. Employees were also instructed to bring a box to collect their belongings.

Douglas-Brown became editor of Southern Voice three years ago. She spent a total of 12 years with the weekly, she said. The new owners contributed an infusion of cash as well as energy, she said, having sister publications also beefed up their own coverage. Douglas-Brown said she could rely upon the Washington Blade to cover a congressional hearing and use their story, for instance.

“We were like our own little gay AP,” she said.

But then the economy began to unravel, cutting into advertising and eventually into the newsroom. About one-third of the staff has been laid off over a couple of years -- going from about 35 to about 20, Douglas-Brown said.

“We’ve been doing twice the work with half the people,” she said.

"Things have been terrible for at least five years," said Mike Fleming, who worked for David Atlanta, including a four-year-stint as editor, until he was laid off in January.

"They literally couldn't afford me anymore. That was some solace," said Fleming, who helped start Project Q, a blog for gays, lesbians and transgendered people.

Window Media's troubles reflect the challenges gay publications are facing nationally, said Todd Evans, president and chief executive officer of Rivendell Media.

But Evans, whose company buys advertising for the gay media around the nation, insists the issue isn’t advertising.

While he admits that advertising revenue has been down for most of the year, it began picking up in the last quarter and the outlook is good for 2010.

“Advertisers went into a panic and stopped buying,” Evans said of advertising woes earlier this year. He said with all the economic troubles he and others expected the publications to be shuttered years ago.

Now Thursdays, the day SoVo hit stands, won't seem the same, said Outwrite Books founder and owner Philip Rafshoon, even if another publication -- print or online -- eventually fills the void.