Columnists :: Holding The Center
Unvanquished by Richard J. Rosendall
contributing writerMonday Nov 23, 2009 The shutdown of the Washington Blade "is a sign from God," wrote the anti-gay Rev. Anthony Evans to reporter Lou Chibbaro on Nov. 18. But the true miracle may have come last Friday with the Blade’s resurrection as DC Agenda four days after Chibbaro and his colleagues were abruptly ordered to vacate their offices in the National Press Building.
Publisher Lynne Brown, Editor Kevin Naff, and the entire staff did it with sheer willpower, buoyed by an outpouring of community goodwill. It was a busy news week and they never missed a beat. On Friday, Chibbaro covered a D.C. Council hearing on hate crimes. Though I write for their rival, Metro Weekly, I tip my hat to them.
The Blade did not die because of the economic downturn, as some reported. It was pulled down by its corporate parent Window Media, which had used the Blade’s profits to support its unscrupulous, highly-leveraged business tactics in other cities, in what Bay Windows co-publishers Jeff Coakley and Sue O’Connell described as a "gay newspaper killing spree."
Though former Window Media president William Waybourn did much of the damage, I dealt more with his co-founder Chris Crain, who edited the Blade for five years, ending in 2006. Slings and arrows from the press are an occupational hazard for an activist, but Crain’s bullying was in a category all its own. Upon arriving in D.C. in 2001, Citizen Crain (as he dubs himself without irony) quickly established himself as an imperious, sneering know-it-all. In 2004, when the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (which I serve as political vice president) adopted a more cautious strategy on marriage than Crain favored, he proceeded to attack us regularly for months, describing GLAA as "a small group of grumpy old men that the movement has left behind."
Crain called GLAA’s leaders elderly and out-of-touch even as his own reporters routinely relied upon our expertise. The idea that success requires preparation seemed foreign to him. But last week, when the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics rejected a proposed initiative to block same-sex marriage, the ruling was the fruit of work done long ago. In 1979, at the urging of what was then the Gay Activists Alliance, the D.C. Council amended the law to prohibit ballot measures calling for people to vote on other people’s rights.
Time heals everything. Crain’s successor, Kevin Naff, wrote in an editorial on August 7, "A handful of city activists -- led by Bob Summersgill and Rick Rosendall -- have pursued a deliberate, calculated and ultimately effective strategy of incremental rights gains. Their patience and persistence have paid off and their strategy, sometimes criticized as overly cautious, is vindicated. Visit www.glaa.org for a fascinating timeline of the marriage recognition struggle in the city, which began as far back as 1975."
Before Window Media took over the Blade, it often seemed that then-publisher Don Michaels and editor Lisa Keen and their team put out more of a paper than they could really afford. The Blade owed its reputation largely to Keen’s commitment to traditional journalistic standards, which won a Silver Gavel award from the American Bar Association in 1995 for a four-article series titled "Legal Challenges to Anti-Gay Initiatives." At the same time, Michaels defended the paper’s independence. He once fielded a call from Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who was angry about the Blade’s take on a story and said it was a poor excuse for a community paper. Michaels replied that the congressman was just mad that the Blade wasn’t giving it his spin.
As Michaels told the Washington City Paper in 2001, the Blade established its credibility by "reporting not just about the issues but about the gay community -- warts and all." In other words, the Blade set its sights higher than a rag that reprints press releases and trades in gossip. This showed greater confidence in the community, and greater respect for the intelligence of its readers, than by pandering to the image of GLBT people as a besieged minority needing an extra boost.
While it was a sad irony when the Blade was suddenly shuttered a few weeks after celebrating its 40th anniversary, the new venture is at least
fortunate to be free of an abusive corporate parent. As to my own D.C. publisher, we can handle some healthy competition.
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist whose work has appeared on Salon.com and the Independent Gay Forum (www.indegayforum.com). He can be reached at rrosendall@starpower.net.
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