LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
PAST Out |
by Wik Wikholm |
Today, The Advocate coexists comfortably with its neighbors on most American newsstands. Politicians and celebrities anxious to be interviewed grace its cover and its pages are loaded with the same advertising that supports Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and Vanity Fair. But when it first appeared in 1967, it had a grittier look. That first edition was the brainchild of two members of Los Angeles-based PRIDE, one of many short-lived gay activist organizations that flourished during the late 1960s. Dick Michaels and his lover Bill Rand worked on PRIDE's publications committee, and spent the summer of 1967 deciding how to improve the organization's newsletter. In September, the result was The Los Angeles Advocate, a 12-page amalgamation of news, opinion, and classified ads laid out with a typewriter, with 500 copies printed on cheap 8 1/2 by 11-inch stock. In spite of its dismal quality, the paper sold well, and in early 1968, Michaels and Rand bought it from PRIDE. By summer, advertising revenue from Los Angeles bars, restaurants, and personal ads produced enough income to allow Michaels and Rand to quit their day jobs and work full-time on the paper. The quality of the paper's articles was as uneven as the printing, but The Los Angeles Advocate had a clear voice. Reflecting its roots in militant activism, the editorial style was brash and pro-sex with nude or nearly nude men on many early covers. Four-letter words and honest descriptions of sex acts peppered articles that ranged across a wide spectrum of gay interest. Topics like tips on how to avoid police entrapment ran side by side with lifestyle pieces about movie stars and male fashion, and Michaels faithfully reported every tidbit about the gay liberation movement he could find. In 1969, Michaels and Rand renamed the paper The Advocate and began national distribution. By 1974, press runs routinely ran to 40,000 copies, enough to attract the attention of a wealthy suitor from San Francisco named David Goodstein. Goodstein was an investment banker who had been fired by his employer when they discovered he was gay. Enraged by his termination, Goodstein resolved to use his money to support the movement, and The Advocate seemed a good way to do it. When he approached Michaels and Rand with an attractive offer, they agreed to sell. Goodstein moved the paper's offices to San Francisco and invested hundreds of thousands of dollars transforming The Advocate into a more professional product. Goodstein was an improbable publisher for a militant newspaper. Most California activists were allied with left-wing politics, so when a millionaire took over their Advocate, many were appalled. A rift developed, and Goodstein's personality made it worse. Accustomed to the trappings of power, he often treated his critics harshly, and many, including gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, were barely willing to talk to him. Goodstein didn't seem to care, but in 1983, he and The Advocate were stung by criticism of the paper's coverage of the emerging AIDS crisis. In the New York Native, AIDS activist Larry Kramer blasted the gay press, especially The Advocate, for ignoring the growing AIDS epidemic and failing to push gay men towards safer-sex techniques. Some publications ignored Kramer's broadside, but The Advocate recommended condoms the next month and has maintained a high level of AIDS reporting ever since. In 1984, Goodstein moved the paper back to Los Angeles, where it is still headquartered, but he succumbed to bowel cancer a year later. Without Goodstein's leadership, the paper drifted and many readers feared its best days were behind it. But The Advocate was roused from sleep in the early 1990s by an opportunityand a threat. Marketing reports based on now-questioned statistics declared that gay and lesbian DINKs (Dual Income, No Kids) had huge disposable incomes compared to their married heterosexual counterparts, and mainstream advertisers began funneling money into gay publications. The Advocate's advertising revenues nearly doubled between 1990 and 1992, but the new interest also helped lead to the creation of Genre, Deneuve (now called Curve), and Out. The new glossies were appealing to advertisers, and left The Advocate looking dowdy. Competition forced The Advocate to remake itself, and in 1992, the publication became the magazine familiar today. The erotic and personal ads were spun off into a separate publication, and the traditional newsprint was replaced with the glossy stock advertisers like. Advertisers were attracted by the magazine's new look, though reader response was mixed. Some gay men felt that The Advocate had sold out and "gone mainstream," but many lesbian readers were relieved that male erotica was removed from a magazine that had called itself "gay and lesbian" since 1990. In 1996, the magazine named Judy Wieder, its arts and entertainment editor, the first female editor in chief. Today, the biweekly remains the only national gay and lesbian news publication and is now part of a growing gay media empire. Its publishing company, Liberation Publications Inc., recently bought rival magazine Out and then announced a merger with gay web powerhouse PlanetOut.Wik Wikholm produces gayhistory.com, an introduction to modern gay history. He can be reached on the site's discussion boards, by e-mail at wik@gayhistory.com or through Letters from CAMP Rehoboth. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 10, No. 9, July 14, 2000. |