Wisconsin Media War? Pish Posh! (updated 6/6)

I laughed out loud when I checked in with Bill Attewell's Wisconsin Gay News this morning. His top story asked if there was a start of a newspaper war and then touted that Quest editor/publisher Mark Mariucci "Crowns Himself With Top State Gay Media Tiara." Bill well knows that if anyone can get those glass hats at a discount, it's Mariucci, who is also the owner of the Wisconsin USofA pageant system!

The actual story that supposedly is causing all the "ruckus" between Bill's ears is really nothing more than what could have been an eye-drooping statistical report enlivened with a smidgen of publisher puffery. And the questions Mariucci asked do deserve answers from his competitors.

Before I go further a little reality check is in order (hmmm, where have I heard that phrase before?):

There is no "newspaper war." That would be Bill "stirring the pot" as he is regularly wont to do. Stirring the pot, whether it be about Outbound's Milwaukee publishers, Milwaukee Alder Mike McGee or this year's Milwaukee Gay Pride Parade, creates a lot of heat but very little light. So let's enlighten this "war" broadside with a few facts. First of all,

1. For the most part none of the papers are actually competing head-to-head editorially at this time. Edge has the show performer, drag queen market almost all to itself. Ditto for Outbound's hold on the gay bar marketplace. The closest competitors on the surface might be the Milwaukee monthlies Queer Life and Outbound News, but a peek at the editorial content shows the former heavy on softball features and opinions with a little dated local news coverage thrown in, and the latter a hodgepodge of national news clippings and opinion but all but absent on state and local news. With its bi-weekly schedule, primarily focused on breaking national and state news mixed with leather and free personal ads, Quest for better or worse is the only paper making a conscious effort to be a real "gay newspaper" in the term's classic definition, or in the legacies of dearly-departed Out, Wisconsin INStep and Wisconsin Light.

That said, there certainly is fierce competition for ad dollars. The discounting is akin to the kind of haggling found in New York's garment district, a Middle East bazaar or a used car lot after three days of heavy rain. Deep discounting is the order of the day. The only advertisers paying actual "rate card" rates are professionals who often consider their business card ads as much a public duty to the LGBT community as a source of referrals, and straight advertisers who are probably pretty clueless of what gay media choices actually are out there.

Moreover, the rate competition tends to evaporate when formats and distribution patterns are factored into the equation. Edge and Outbound are pocket-sized glossies and are, for the most part, limited in distribution to their advertisers' venues. Queer Life and Outbound News are color-laden newsprint with disproportional Milwaukee distribution. Queer Life also has the advantage of better distribution in non-gay, non-"adult," progressive locations than any of the other four.

Quest, with its odd, super-sized pocket edition and flat finished paper, is truly the platypus of the Wisconsin gay periodical animal kingdom. In Quest's favor, however, is its truly statewide - though heavily gar bar dependent - distribution.

If there's any real head-to-head competition, it might seem to be between Attewell's Wisconsin Gay News and QNU, Quest's daily news update page, which I dutifully upload anew every morning before going to my day job. Again a closer look sees more compliment than competition.

While there's some overlap, QNU has a lot more original written material, drawn from the print edition, and a well-delineated set of news topics that cover world, national, state, health, entertainment and offbeat news. There's also random photo coverage of gay events, serious and lighthearted and links to the online-only Wisconsin Whispers column. It's outsized design needs work and it is meant to be an update page as part of the larger Quest site rather than a portal.

On the plus side, Wiscosnin Gay News is sharply designed and has a nice toolbar of drop-down resources at the top of the page. Though WGN started out with more original news last Fall, most of the fresh material now shows up more typically in Bill's Blog, Attewell's well-penned, always sassy, sometimes infuriating but addictively readable contribution to the blogosphere. On the down side, WGN has an inconsistently updated set of state stories followed by a series of links to gay "reads," at least one of which can lead surfers by accident or design into the gay porn world with its Trojan and spyware-laden pop-up ads. (June 6 update - Billy obviously had time on his hands yesterday, site has been polished up nicely since this blog initially went up - in all seriousness, a genuine coincidence most likely.) Also recently, the mix in the top stories section appears to be a better indicator of what piqued Attewell's interests on any given day rather than a conscious attempt to create a consistent news update.

(Aside to Bill: your recent preoccupation with straight actresses in lesbian lip locks and Sapphic revelations seems to be way too "straight guy" to me. Were you abducted by Dobson's "Love Won Out" minions? Are you going through the change? Most importantly, does Jorge know?) Secondly,

2. There is internal dialogue amongst the media players. Though no one is talking to everyone equally, there is a lot of internal dialogue going on among the writers, publishers and editors at all the publications. Between Mark and I, we are in contact with at least one peer, usually more, at the other four papers. I'll let the others come forward and share their contacts if they so wish.

That doesn't mean there isn't occasional squabbling. The James Boys certainly have had no love loss with Bill Attewell. I hear from third parties that Queer Life's Don Hoffman doesn't like me, allegedly because of my toupee jokes and reporting his previously-published spotty history at MPS. Za has alternately ranted against and then played the Rodney King "can't we all get along" bit with a number of his print peers.

My shorts recently were in a bundle recently over Sura Faraj's civil unions piece, not because of any personal reason, but because of its obliviousness to the current Wisconsin political realities and its lack of straightforwardness. At least two of the interviewees were fellow employees of Queer Life. That's not good investigative journalism, that's reflecting the sophistry of water cooler sycophants. So big deal, occasional friction happens in close quarters. And finally,

3. It's all free and no one's getting rich. Assuming one can even get a copy, its not going to cost a reader anything more than the calories to pick any of Wisconsin's gay papers up. Looking at pick up patterns, the great majority either pick up everything or nothing.

The redundancy is even worse on the web. Want to check out LGBT news? There are literally hundreds of choices. Additionally websites exist that permit you to customize your news, so if you're hot for the latest on left-handed Lithuanian lesbians, MSN, AOL, Crayon.net and many more will look it up for you and plant it on your desktop for you to look over with your morning coffee.

Fiscally, the alternative press in general is not a lucrative undertaking. Print media are so 20th Century to begin with, as the ongoing consolidation of the mainstream press demonstrates. Quest has been around for 12 years, currently the Guinness record for uninterrupted Wisconsin gay media longevity, and that's because Mark physically prints his own paper.

So stir away, Bill. As you've said to me over and over, with the exception of a few dozen gay folks, no one really gives a hoot. And unless they're running the presses, those that do really need to get a life. Most of us in the gay media are doing this work not for the money and certainly not for the glory, but because we enjoy doing the work, and think its fun. Now you know why they call us queer.

And, oh yes, maybe - just maybe - the gay community in Wisconsin is a little better off for our efforts.