Media vets launch new LGBTQ-focused outlet Uncloseted Media
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Friends and supporters of Uncloseted Media gather at The Mercedes Club in New York City for the publication's summer fundraiser. Photo credit: Kenny Wassus
Two media veterans are launching a new non-partisan LGBTQ-focused outlet called Uncloseted Media, founder Spencer Macnaughton told Axios.
Why it matters: Coverage of LGBTQ-specific issues, they believe, has taken a back seat ever since the landmark Supreme Court decision was made to legalize same-sex marriage in the U.S. in 2015.
- "Once the Supreme Court gave us marriage equality, I think the issues receded even more from the top of mind of most of the editors and most of the newspapers ... they thought the gay issue was over," said Charles Kaiser, a well-known writer and journalist who will serve as managing editor for the publication.
Details: Macnaughton, a longtime journalist and LGBTQ professor at NYU, will serve as the publication's editor-in-chief.
- He will work with Kaiser to build out a newsroom of investigative journalists and reporters to cover LGBTQ-specific issues, such anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures.
Follow the money: The outlet has nearly half a million dollars in verbal funding pledges from philanthropic backers, including Paul Grossinger, co-founder of the venture investing firm Gaingels, and investor Paul Austin of the P. Austin Foundation, Macnaughton said.
- The outlet announced separate business and media advisory boards last month, including heavy hitters in the LGBTQ media and business industries, such as Jackson Block, co-founder and CEO of LGBT+ VC and Brody Levesque, formerly the top editor of the Los Angeles Blade.
- Macnaughton could have waited to launch the publication until he had more money in the bank, but wanted to get ahead of any major stories that will impact the LGBTQ population ahead 2024 election.
Zoom in: The publication, which officially launches on Tuesday, will live on Substack, an independent newsletter platform, to start. It will publish two long reads per week alongside a newsletter that will be free for subscribers for the first few months before it moves behind a paywall.
- Macnaughton is working with volunteer students from NYU to help scale the platform's journalism as it raises money and builds a business.
- Eventually, he plans to put more of the outlet's work behind a paywall and use that revenue, combined with philanthropic donations, to sustain and grow the outlet.
- "We want to get to the point where we have, you know, a substantial paid staff," Kaiser said.
The big picture: Uncloseted Media's launch comes at a trying time for for-profit journalism outlets, including those that are LGBTQ-focused.
- Two of the biggest LGBTQ publications, OUT magazine and The Advocate, saw their editors depart in 2019 amid financial challenges.
- "The revenue streams aren't there for them, and that's why so much of the new serious journalism is being done on a nonprofit model, as we are," said Kaiser, who was a founder and former president of the New York chapter of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.
What's next: Uncloseted hopes to partner with mainstream news outlets to do investigations and rigorous reporting on LGBTQ issues. In the interim, student volunteers are helping to shape the outlet's coverage in a way that is inclusive of all populations within the LGBTQ umbrella.
- "In a media landscape where our voices are routinely left out in favor of often-unchallenged bigotry, I am so glad to carve out a space for real, rigorous journalism by and about queer and trans people." Hope Pisoni, an NYU student and trans journalist volunteering with Uncloseted Media.
