Special Extended Post: Exploring The Bilerico Project's impact on LGBT-specific news, commentary and analysis
In December of 2008, The Advocate, the granddaddy of U.S. publications focusing specifically on news pertaining to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, was in crisis mode. After 41 years of bi-weekly publication, readership had fallen drastically, advertisers were fleeing and its ownership had changed hands countless times. Print media, of course, was failing across the board, but in the case of The Advocate, the crisis caused the editors to refocus the entire magazine, booking more celebrity covers, scaling back its investigative journalism efforts and amping up the fluff content generally seen in less hard-hitting queer publications. The Advocate used to be the LGBT version of The New York Times, breaking new and interesting stories about the gay community, nabbing the most ground-breaking interviews and fully exploring every angle to gay rights issues that plagued the time.
At that point, however, it seemed to be trading in its esteemed legacy for a shot at staying afloat in an increasingly challenging market. In a cost-cutting move by corporate owners Regent and Here Media, publication went monthly instead of bi-weekly, and by November of 2009, the staff admitted its defeat; the magazine ceased publication as a stand-alone, newsstand and subscription-based entity. It would now be whittled down to 32 pages each month and packaged with Out magazine, which, to continue with the mainstream media parallels, could be the LGBT version of People. Advocate.com, the press releases raved, would still be delivering all of the news and commentary fit to print about the LGBT community.
But readers dedicated to understanding gay-related issues were unimpressed with the bare-bones, inverted pyramid news updates of The Advocate online, so they scoured for other media offerings to satisfy their cravings. That’s where queer-focused online blogs stepped in to claim the newly-available market as their own.
One of the most important of these LGBT blogs is The Bilerico Project, an independent, citizen journalism-focused blog still owned by its original founder, Bil Browning. The site closely follows The Huffington Post’s successful “group blog” model, publishing news reports, editorials and analyses, primarily those pertaining to LGBT communities, written by experts in a wide array of fields and disciplines.
In December of 2008, The Advocate, the granddaddy of U.S. publications focusing specifically on news pertaining to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, was in crisis mode. After 41 years of bi-weekly publication, readership had fallen drastically, advertisers were fleeing and its ownership had changed hands countless times. Print media, of course, was failing across the board, but in the case of The Advocate, the crisis caused the editors to refocus the entire magazine, booking more celebrity covers, scaling back its investigative journalism efforts and amping up the fluff content generally seen in less hard-hitting queer publications. The Advocate used to be the LGBT version of The New York Times, breaking new and interesting stories about the gay community, nabbing the most ground-breaking interviews and fully exploring every angle to gay rights issues that plagued the time.
At that point, however, it seemed to be trading in its esteemed legacy for a shot at staying afloat in an increasingly challenging market. In a cost-cutting move by corporate owners Regent and Here Media, publication went monthly instead of bi-weekly, and by November of 2009, the staff admitted its defeat; the magazine ceased publication as a stand-alone, newsstand and subscription-based entity. It would now be whittled down to 32 pages each month and packaged with Out magazine, which, to continue with the mainstream media parallels, could be the LGBT version of People. Advocate.com, the press releases raved, would still be delivering all of the news and commentary fit to print about the LGBT community.
But readers dedicated to understanding gay-related issues were unimpressed with the bare-bones, inverted pyramid news updates of The Advocate online, so they scoured for other media offerings to satisfy their cravings. That’s where queer-focused online blogs stepped in to claim the newly-available market as their own.
One of the most important of these LGBT blogs is The Bilerico Project, an independent, citizen journalism-focused blog still owned by its original founder, Bil Browning. The site closely follows The Huffington Post’s successful “group blog” model, publishing news reports, editorials and analyses, primarily those pertaining to LGBT communities, written by experts in a wide array of fields and disciplines.