Nation's largest gay newspaper publisher closes

The nation's largest publisher of newspapers serving the gay and lesbian community has shut down. Laura Douglas-Brown, editor of Southern Voice newspaper in Atlanta, said she arrived at work Monday to find the locks changed and a note saying parent company Window Media LLC had closed down. She said the company's other publications–including the Washington Blade, Houston Voice and South Florida Blade–were also being closed. "From my understanding, there was just no more money to keep these companies running," she said in a telephone interview as she sat with her former employees outside their locked Atlanta office. "We had all been told that the companies would be sold. The fact that we were shut down was a complete shock." The company's financial trouble stemmed from a number of factors. Besides an industry-wide drop in advertising revenue amid the economic meltdown, mainstream publications are writing more about gay and lesbian issues, reducing dependency on niche publications such as Window Media's.