Having read a lot of the press coverage of the Massachusetts gay marriages last week, one question arose in my mind. Where has Bay Windows been in all of this? Yes, I know they have covered the lawsuit, the court ruling, the Constitutional Convention, and the marriages. In fact, they have reported the developments quite well. I have read their coverage fairly regularly and I should make clear it’s not their reporting that I question. I just can’t help but feel they should have “owned” the gay marriage issue and been the go-to source - or at least one of the news outlets being sought after in the unfolding debate. Yet they weren’t.
If you look to any general public discussion - whether in the press or among bloggers - the local gay press has been marginal. Even the Republican Herald covered the statehouse politics better, the weekly Phoenix provided same-day coverage of the constitutional convention, and the old-media Globe thought of having a gay marriage weblog. I realize that Bay Windows is a smaller news concern, with limited resources and a weekly, not daily, publishing schedule. But might it have not come up with some online content for an issue as big as this? After all, I don’t get paid for writing this, yet I managed to run some commentary during the convention and afterward. So chalk some of the local gay press’s low profile to combination lack of resources and lack of imagination.
But there’s another story here, too. The mainstream press no longer marginalizes gay rights voices as it used to. The most stirring editorials weren’t in Bay Windows most of the time. They were in the Globe or the Phoenix, both of which came out strongly for gay marriage rights. The Phoenix’s reporting, oddly enough, was more aligned with a putative gay voice than Bay Window’s studied neutrality. That left Bay Windows, a small weakly, without a clear raison d’etre in their coverage. To the extent that the gay press serves a vital news function in the gay community beyond entertainment and lifestyle news, its role is being compromised by the willingness of mainstream and non-gay news outlets to provide similar news coverage.
Does this spell the end of the gay press? Predicting its demise may be premature, especially as the economic raison d’etre of a gay newspaper (advertising and gay-community listings) continues unabated. Besides, legal marriage does not mean overnight integration of culture. But this week may well be a turning point in the function of the gay press. An institution born of marginalization will have to reinvent itself to survive an increasing acceptance of gay and lesbian Bay Staters.
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