The Indie Rock Fag: What’s Wrong With The Washington Blade
Original Illustration by Ryan Blomberg
Last October I was laid off from my post as Arts Reporter at The Washington Blade. I have many personal bones to pick with the publication, but I am not picking them here.
At The Washington Blade’s swanky offices in the National Press Club building, the editorial staff holds a meeting every Thursday to determine the content of the following week’s paper. All three sections- production, features, and news- meet in the latter’s seating area to pick and choose what events, policies and people merit coverage in the nation’s gay newspaper of record. The news area, like most of the office, is scantly decorated. A Rolling Stone cover here or travel poster there provide the only place for the eye to rest… with one notable exception.
During my tenure, one entire wall was taken up by a blown-up cover of the now defunct Genre Magazine. Though Genre itself is a lowest-common-denominator fag rag put out by Window Media, The Blade’s troubled parent company, the issue in question proved particular distracting. A shirtless twink, blown up to larger than life, smiled blankly amid headlines like “Smooth and Uncut: A guide to shaving” (or something like that.) As a cure for boredom I would spend meetings searching his sunny face and perfect shirtless torso, and the headlines around them, for any sort of relevance to my own life. At the same time, I was assigned article after article on the empty gay flotsam that washes through DC at a particularly alarming rate. Another diva. Another drag show. Another house DJ. This is what The Blade says is gay life.
And finally I realized what I saw in that model. His low-slung underwear and convex abs lead upwards to a pair of shiny nipples that would have looked more in place on a ping pong table than an actual human body. And the little English major left inside me said “Hey!” For I can say, without any reservation, that these limpid teats now stand in for the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg over the ash heap of modern gay culture.
And I use the word “culture” here deliberately. When it comes to actual news- national and local politics, important happenings, the gay bashings and weddings, the successes and violences that push our movement forward- The Blade is unparalleled. There is no other publication in this country that does such a thorough job of covering gay news. Writers like Lou Chibbarro and Amy Cavanaugh are among the best in the city, and these elements of the paper deserve every single journalism award they have won in the past years.
Where The Blade fails is its coverage of… drum roll… culture. Perhaps the most used word in TNG’s entire canon, culture is the thing that every queer person must come out into and either be disappointed by or seamlessly assimilated within. It’s the collection of arts, music and movies, clubs and bars, and influential community figures that define the outward elements of a person’s life. Successful media should have one of two relationships to culture: It should either act as a mirror, reflecting a given culture, or act as a sculptor, helping mold a new culture when the existing one is not satisfactory. The Blade does neither of these things.
Instead, the Washington Blade is like the light from a distant star. Filtering through 30 year-old notions of what comprises a queer person, its source no longer exists by the time it reaches our eyes. In any given weekend in Washington DC, a Blade reader might go to an art opening by a queer artist. They might go see a queer national band like The Blow or a local one like The Mirror Script. They might attend a book reading at Lambda Rising or go to a museum. (And this doesn’t even take into account the wealth of non-gay-specific social outlets here in the District.) Maybe if they’re broke they just sit in Meridian Hill Park and listen to the drummers. This is the way that 99% of gay people I know live their lives.
But to read The Blade, you would think that gay people were only men who moved in one single-minded hive from an expensive, champagne-serving brunch to an afternoon of shopping at Universal Gear to a night spent out at one of our four local clubs the paper seems to give any attention to. Who lives like this any more?
When I was at the Blade I had to write about things that I thought had gone out of style with condomless sex. I wrote about Tea Dances. I interviewed bitter drag queens who were drunk at 3 in the afternoon and wouldn’t give me any straight answers. I covered circuit parties. Circuit parties! I don’t care what charity it was for or how many people attended, a circuit party should not have more than a passing mention in any legitimate nightlife coverage. The Blade has a considerable amount of clout as a queer institution and it should be using that clout responsibly, not to tout anachronistic bastions of drugs and self-abuse as worthy of its column inches.
Can you imagine if The Forward, an esteemed Jewish newspaper, only reported on money-lending and rhinoplasty? If Sassy magazine had contented itself to only cover makeup tips and the country’s hottest secretarial academies?
The sum of the “lifestyle” covered in The Blade’s pages, simply, makes me ashamed to be gay. They put shirtless men on the cover of a holiday gift guide. It took them until one year ago to find a music reviewer who covered anything but screaming divas and anonymous ooncha-music. Most egregiously, the Blade treats women, transfolk and people of color as mere offshoots, something to be covered once every month or so and forgotten about in the interim. I once had to write an article about non-white social life in the city which compressed our entire Hispanic, Asian and Indian queer life into 650 words. I had to watch time and again as hot men were used as cover images for co-ed events.
Gay life encompasses a staggering breadth of diversity. No matter what ethnicity, economic bracket or social clique you fall into, there are other gay people that fall into it too. There is a veritable buffet of gay people and activities out there in the world and The Blade is content to dip a dollar bill into a suspension of sweat and glitter and call this appetizer a full meal.
Even as an outsider it is not hard to see why. Papers run on advertising. A niche paper must rely on niche advertisers, and the gay niche is almost completely comprised of bars, clubs and a small number of developers or retail outlets. Even though it is never stated outright, a publication must keep these outlets happy to stay in business. As these companies grow they funnel more money into the papers, and so on. Or at least this is the way I see it.
I greatly fear that, to survive the current economic downturn, The Blade will be forced to ditch its local coverage altogether and just focus on what it does best: being a national news source. Every business is hurting right now, but I can imagine the gay press has been hit even harder because so many of its outlets are so irrelevant. Besides the fact that these papers will lose money right along with their advertisers, they will notice the even longer-term problem of losing readers.
I was moved to co-found The New Gay because I got tired of writing for a newspaper whose coverage bore no resemblance to my life or the life of anyone around me. If that’s how it looks from the inside, how is it going to look to the city at large? I got so tired of being rebuffed in my efforts to expand our coverage that I actually had to start a competing publication. And every single one of the Blade’s readers has that option, or the slightly easier path of just reading this publication, or Metro Weekly, or Butt Magazine, or one of a million other blogs or magazines that reflects gay life as it actually is, not just as a small group of people wish it still was.
I wrote this all as a challenge, not as an admonishment. I don’t think it would be hard for the Washington Blade to make the necessary changes to keep mattering in the lives of DC’s queer residents. The question is, then, if they actually want to.
This is very well thought out and very well written, Zack. I haven’t read the Blade for culture in years. In fact these days, the only part of the Blade I read is “Bitch Session” (and that only online), so that I can innoculate myself from any desire to return to the bars. *sigh* Oh, my people.
mr z., you sure know how to be scathing. i love it!
gee Zack, bitter much?
“I covered circuit parties. Circuit parties!” That made me laugh out loud. I would think you were kidding about covering circuit parties, but I don’t think you are, so it’s funny ’cause it’s true.
Thank you for being unafraid to tell it like it is. This is awesome.
snap! i love a scathing indictment. you and i clearly agree that the blade is pretty sucky, but apparently for different reasons. mostly i just think it’s kinda staid in a way that i don’t find appealing. sure, they probably cover “gay news” better than anyone else in the country, but frankly, i think gay news is pretty boring. maybe it’s irresponsible, or lazy, or crass of me, but i don’t feel like i need to hear about every queer who gets beaten up in kansas city or whereverthefuck. and maybe the wapo or the nyt or cnn or bbc or cbc won’t give me the breaking news on the latest ineffectual brouhaha over at the hrc, but uh, i don’t care. i don’t feel like i’m missing out on any important developments by not reading the blade.
since i’m not tuning in for news, how about their features? they’re boring too. their “regular gay joe” interviews are dull. their “speak to the blade” or whatever it’s called is a tired idea and only a good feature when the onion does it. even their scene-out-and-about vanity show bar photos pale in comparison to MW’s (and i’m not just saying that because i’ve never appeared in it, while i’ve graced MW’s pages twice. but it doesn’t help)
bitch session gets an enthusiastic pass because what else would i read through my sunglasses that i’m wearing inside because i’m hungover at breakfast sunday morning? but even the bitch session only really serves as a lead in to my favourite brunch game: guess who the week’s MW cover-boy has selected as most fascinating dinner guests (living or dead) based purely on the provided glamour shots. (hint: one is oprah, the other is his mom. the third one is a total wild card, abraham lincoln maybe?).
Dead on, Zack. Thanks for articulating this so well. The Blade just doesn’t feel like essential reading, and like you said reads like light from a star that’s gone out years ago.
It especially annoys me that they capitalize “gay.” So it’s Gay.
@Adam – “Abraham Lincoln” – thank God I wasn’t sipping my morning coffee, or I’d need a new monitor.
I enjoy the Wash Blade a great deal, it’s better than my local publications.
The situation you described is applicable to gay media in general, not just the Blade. An emphasis on superficiality and high-end consumer products.
Perhaps the problem is that gay publications have to be everything to everyone, blending the politics with the parties. Maybe there are LGBTs who want more “substantive” articles, but my impression is that every publication that has tried to fill that gap has failed.
adam, for the most part i agree with ya, but I’ve known a “queer who was beaten up” right there on K street and written up in the blade too.. and I’m glad Zack gave reporter Lou Chibbaro some credit, because he does do a pretty good job.
overall though, yeah, I think the content could use a little upgrade
Thanks for the plug, Zack. Great essay!
I agree. I think most people who read this blog agree: gay media sucks. But Zack I’d like to see you tackle a more ambitious article investigating why. If you look at who owns media outlets, you can start to make sense of why they cover what they cover. My guess is that these mainstream gay magazines write about circuit parties because circuit parties are part of the social and financial and political scene of the publishers of those magazines.
The question you leave unanswered is: why is it necessary for “gay” media to cover all the alternative stuff that gets plenty of coverage in non-gay music/art/film etc. magazines? If homosexuals want to read about indie bands or gallery openings or other hipster fare, there are plenty of places to read about that stuff. Too many, I would argue.
Hm. I think the real question at this point is — is gay media even necessary any more?
what exactly is wrong with being drunk at 3pm, zack???
You wrote:
“I was moved to co-found The New Gay because I got tired of writing for a newspaper whose coverage bore no resemblance to my life or the life of anyone around me.”
I guess that means you must be in the majority then. Or did it ever occur to you that you and everybody else around you are in the minority. Most gay people live many lives. I, for example, have two children, have been with my husband (yes legally) for almost ten years, and stay in most nights. I am also a former concert pianist and singer. I go to the theater often at times and sometimes not at all. I read books and I go to art openings and concerts. And maybe 4 or 5 times a year I attend huge party weekends where we go crazy and do everything that people accuse “circuit queens” of doing.
I believe most gay people are balanced in some way like this. So your rant seems to be just all about you and the fun you’re not having. Ten years ago, I had never been to a “party,” in fact if someone asked me if I partied I didn’t even know what they meant. I still don’t drink alcohol because it makes me feel bad, destroys your liver, brain cells and is linked to over 20 different forms of cancer. I made a conscious decision to include parties in my life because people looked like they were having a lot of fun. They were and I have been as well. I can’t think of how much I would have missed if we hadn’t decided to stop judging and actually see what it was all about.
Sounds like you should try to do the same, or at the very least stop pretending you speak for gay life as it is. You don’t. You just speak for your limited slice of the world.
Zack, props to you for starting TNG to compete with The Blade. When I moved here, I was psyched that there were not one, but TWO easily accessed gay papers, but I quickly stopped trying to read them. Assuming that The Blade and Metro Weekly are representative of queer D.C. means thinking that there are almost no lesbians, that most gay guys are white, preppy, twinkie asshats, and that while the men loooove their drunken fag hag girls, they do not socialize with women otherwise. I went to one party that Metro Weekly had billed as good for guys and gals and was so disgusted by the misogyny of the entertainers that I left and gave up. While TNG is far from perfect, I’m glad it exists and gives me better alternatives.
Jandovwal — I think you’ve completely missed the point. I don’t think Zack or TNG claims to lay claim to speaking for the majority of queer people in DC. The point is that papers like Metro Weekly and The Blade claim to be purveyors of being the news sources covering topics that are relevant to the DC gay community as a whole, but their coverage only seems to be relevant to a specific subset of that community.
What I have a hard time comprehending is that when someone comes out to make a fair criticism and call into question that we, as a community, could be doing to be inclusive to much more diverse group of people than we are, that people get so fucking knee-jerk defensive about it? Unless you fit the stereotype I’m having a hard time discerning what there is to be so defensive about?
I am surprisingly conflicted about this post.
I was Zack’s editor for the majority of the time he worked there (having since moved on to the more peaceful pastures of being a yoga teacher). The issues he raises here are ones that the features department talked about at length – how to make the “culture” section more representative of, what I would term, queer experience as opposed to “gay” experience (which often delineates white, male, and moneyed).
There were times when we were shortsighted and failed. I am more than willing to take full responsibility for poor attempts at making that section a broader swath of the type of coverage that, frankly, I found to be more interesting.
Running parallel to that is the hard fact that Zack mentions – a lot of those male, white, moneyed folks are the few advertisers the Blade has. Do you alienate that minimal audience in favor of an audience that isn’t necessarily interested in picking up the check (because they’re not represented – a vicious circle, indeed)?
There were articles we had to write every year that made us want to weep – the ubiquitous Rehoboth travel piece, the Leather Weekend article, the Cherry article, the Rodeo article, the horror of the gift guide when all attempts at reconciling capitalism with art were thrown to the winds.
HOWEVER, those articles reached people, too – people who may feel validated by seeing that their lives are reflected in some kind of press outlet. We can degrade circuit parties all we want, and agreed, they are hotbeds of rampant, messed-up drug use, but they’re also a dim reflection of ecstatic experience, where people leave their corporate lives to throw on some glitter, enjoy some dancing, and fall into someone’s arms for a night.
I was proud to spearhead the first fashion issue. Just shallow drivel? To some. A look at bringing beauty to the world? To some. Who was the cover? Fashion Fights Poverty – spearheaded by various people of color – a group that uses fashion shows to bring money to under-served populations.
What about the 30 Under 30 article at Pride time? Yes, they were white boys climbing the political ladder (this IS D.C. after all), but they were next to singers, dancers, nightlife promoters of various genders and ethnicities.
None of this is enough, for sure. We needed more and more often – especially for our trans sister/brothers. They got short shrift waaaaaaay too often.
And in all honestly, by the last few months of my time there, I was just in survival mode, pushing through to my departure date.
There were many things of my years at the Blade that I wish I could have done differently, yet, overall, I’m very proud to have worked there, at the longest-running queer paper in the country, housed at the National Press Building with media outlets from around the world. Who would have thought that a bi-weekly, typed up, glorified newsletter would come so far as to have discussions about quality of multicultural, intra-community dynamics?
Jondavwal and Greg – I guess what you guys are saying that since the Blade represents the interests of the narrow, monied interests of the queer “community”, then we shouldn’t criticize it? Are we supposed to dutifully read it, despite the fact that some of us never find anyone like ourselves inside its pages? Or are we supposed to just quietly go away so you all can have your circuit party highs (chemical or otherwise) and your nice white picket fences, undisturbed by other people’s ideas and interests? If that is the real “gay community”, then count me out. And no, I won’t feel obligated to be silent about the exclusion.
No one is asking you to stay silent – that would not add anything to the experience.
My real point is tha there’s always another story.
Case in point: you don’t I anything about me. You know nothing about my dreams and desires or my life. You don’t know my mind, heart, and spirit – making assumptions about people’s lives is an action that leads to great misunderstanding.
I am a white, liberal, college educated, professional in my 40s living in the suburbs who has been out and politically active since age 20. I caution Greg and Kyle against perpetuating the myth that all “male, white” Gay men are also “moneyed” and interested only in Rehoboth, Leather Weekend, Cherry, etc. from behind “nice white picket fences” and the sterile safety of intellectually impenetrable cul-de-sacs.
Mainstream Gay media does not represent my ideas and interests. I’d rather spend the little free time I have looking at The Nation, The Economist, TNG, Americablog, etc. The Blade is an organ of conventional Mainstream Gay Culture and as such will continue to represent that small rigid claustrophobic culture, calcifying stereotypes and alienating a much wider Gay readership.
Rehoboth, Leather Weekend, Cherry, etc. are irrelevant. I’d much rather be at the TED Conference or rock climbing in Great Falls Park.
Zack, I would have slit my wrists if I had your job at the Blade.
My hat is off to you for roping so many people into your personal drama with your gift for writing. All you have accomplished with this rant is to demonstrate your incongruence and dissatisfaction with the gay community while using The Blade, or any member of the print media for that matter, as your whipping post.
Ike, I think the point of Zack’s post is that his personal experience sheds light on the tragic state of “gay” media in the US. Can anyone claim that the Blade’s coverage of “culture” isn’t completely vapid, and – dare I say it? – worse than useless? Are we wrong to point this out?
So Circuit parties are not worth writing about, because you don’t like them? Drag queens are passe? Dude, maybe you got laid off for a reason.
“Gay life encompasses a staggering breadth of diversity” Yeah, and every gay city newspaper I read bends over backwards to include every letter of LGBT. Guess what? That includes “Circuit boys.” And drag queens.
[...] são justas e imparciais. Zack, o outro co-fundador do TNG, trabalhava para o Blade, então ele pode falar mais sobre isso. Mas eu não me identifico com qualquer um desses anúncios voltados para os LGBT (na verdade, [...]
[...] The New Gay Agenda, zack, the former Blade staffer, wrote about this last May, when speaking of the paper was in present-tense: Most egregiously, the Blade treats [...]
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