Monday, November 16, 2009

Breaking News: Southern Voice (Atlanta's LGBT Newspaper) and the Washington Blade Shut Down?

Update 11:26am: The Washington Blade just tweeted that they are closing.

Looks like this will effect: Washington Blade, Southern Voice, Houston Voice, South Florida Blade, David Atlanta and The 411 Magazine.

From the Advocate:

Report: Washington Blade Closing
By Michelle Garcia

Window Media, the publisher of several gay and lesbian newspapers including Washington, D.C.’s 40-year-old Washington Blade has shut down, the Associated Press reports. In addition to the Blade, Window is publisher of the Houston Voice, South Florida Blade, David Atlanta, The 411 Magazine, and Atlanta’s Southern Voice.

Laura Douglas-Brown, editor of the Southern Voice, said she came to work Monday to find the doors chained and with a note from Window owners saying that the company was shutting down. Brown said all the publisher’s papers were closing.

Click on the link for the latest from the Atlanta based blog.
Richard Eldredge tweets that the Southern Voice and David, Atlanta’s leading gay publications, have been shut down. Eldredge says staffers came to work today to find the locks changed.
In February, the NYC-based Gay City News reported that the Avalon Equity Fund, a parent company majority shareholder in SoVo, Washington Blade and several other gay publications’ parent company Unite Media, had been forced into liquidation and faced federal receivership. People familiar with the matter recently told CL they were unaware of the company’s fate. (Project Q Atlanta’s been following the story closely.)
UPDATE: “We had been told that essentially we’d be sold down the road,” SoVo Editor Laura Douglas-Brown tells CL. “We had no inclination it’d be this morning. Everyone’s in shock right now.”
UPDATE: Project Q Atlanta posts a photo of the one-page announcement that greeted the publications’ staffers.

We’re trying to touch base with Unite Media and Window Media. More to come.

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