Transcripts

SPEAKER 1: We've had a long historical commitment to coverage of gay and lesbian issues that did not begin with this paper. The Reader has always been a place where the gay and lesbian community and the straight community who is interested in the gay and lesbian community, could find out what was going on.

SPEAKER 2: Now, by separating this out, are you going for something that's socially responsible, or do you think you're hitting a new market?

SPEAKER 1: We're not attempting to ghettoize our gay and lesbian readers by any means. They will, as they always have up here in other parts of our paper, by doing a monthly, we are trying to, yes, address the specific needs of a community on a monthly basis. One of the concerns that has been raised was that The Reader would be out vacuuming up dollars that otherwise would stay in the gay and lesbian community for a community-oriented publication.

But, you know, Equal Time on the same day we came out, members of Equal Time put together what I thought was just an outstanding special issue. And it was a real nice-looking package, and it looked healthy. So, I mean, from the standpoint of the gay and lesbian community, I think you're ending up with more voices, not less.

SPEAKER 2: Rick, how did you get involved in this? Were you part of the start of Q?

SPEAKER 3: Yeah. I've been writing for The Reader for about a year and a half. I cover the performing arts, and I'm also the food critic. So I'm familiar with the people at The Reader. And when Equal Time suspended publication in April, David and I had just started talking about, well, wouldn't it be great if The Reader picked up a little slack, in terms of coverage. And it developed from there. I had been a staff writer at ET for about nine months and a contributing writer for, I don't know, nine months before that.

SPEAKER 2: Do you think that it's unique that a publication that caters to, quote, "mainstream" has a separate section for the gay community?

SPEAKER 3: Well, I think what David just said pretty much rings true. The Reader, I think, has always been very generous in its coverage of gay and lesbian issues. And I think this is just a natural extension of it, of that coverage. I think The Reader is a natural place for something like this to happen.

SPEAKER 1: One of the things that I should point out is that other alternatives around the country, including the Boston Phoenix, which is one of the most successful alternative papers in the country, have been doing this for a number of years. It's not like we were going ahead without precedent. I should also point out that the Star and Tribune has had special sections targeted toward gay and lesbians. Last week, the New Yorker's entire front of their magazine Talk of The Town was dedicated to Stonewall and gay and lesbian issues. We're hardly out there all by ourselves.

SPEAKER 2: Is the timing of this publication tied in any way to Gay Pride Week that's coming up?

SPEAKER 1: Rick, can you-- I think Rick could better answer that. But from a marketing perspective, yes, that was part of what we were doing in terms of thinking it would be a good time for a good splashy launch.

SPEAKER 3: And editorially as well, we covered-- the whole issue talks about Pride from different perspectives and looks at the festival from lots of different viewpoints. So we took that as an editorial launching point as well.

SPEAKER 2: Now what about the cover of Q? Two nude men that are basically dressed in the American flag. And we've heard a lot of flak about.

SPEAKER 1: They're either nude or they're dressed. They can't be both.

[LAUGHTER]

SPEAKER 2: Well, they are dressed in the American flag.

SPEAKER 1: OK.

SPEAKER 2: Do you expect to?

SPEAKER 3: I think wrapped in the American flag. I don't know if they have something underneath, but we don't know that.

[LAUGHTER]

SPEAKER 2: Do you expect to get any flak for that?

SPEAKER 3: I don't expect to get flak. We picked that photo because it's such a beautiful picture. Ann Marcin took just a beautiful shot, and we all just fell in love with it and thought, well, that's our cover picture.

SPEAKER 1: What the photograph says to us is that gay and lesbian people-- it's your basic born in America photograph. You know what, we had no feeling that it was going to be that controversial, until other people started looking at it. When we were looking at it in the shop, we just thought it was a very, very lovely photograph that depicted the theme of Pride elegantly enough so that we didn't even feel compelled to put a headline on it. I mean, we just thought it spoke for itself entirely.

And yeah, it's had the secondary effect of grabbing some attention. I have taken, I had three calls from people who were offended by this section and specifically pointed to the photograph. And we knew that was going to happen. I have taken at least 10 calls saying this is a good place for your paper to be, and I'm glad to open it up and find it there.

SPEAKER 2: What has the response been from the gay and lesbian community?

SPEAKER 3: Well, from the people that I've talked to, it's all been really enthusiastic and supportive. And everybody has had great things to say about it. It's another place for gays and lesbians to look for information about their community. And it's, I think the one thing that's really great about it is that it's in a mainstream publication that has a huge circulation. So really, anybody can feel comfortable in picking up The Reader and finding something about them in it.