The Advocate

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For other uses, see The Advocate (disambiguation).
The Advocate

The Advocate No. 994, October 9, 2007
Editor in Chief Matthew Breen
Categories Newsmagazine
Frequency Bi-monthly
Circulation 175,000
First issue 1967
Company Here Media
Country United States
Language English
Website www.advocate.com
ISSN 0001-8996

The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people. The magazine, established in 1967, is the oldest and largest LGBT publication in the United States and the only surviving one of its kind that was founded before the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City that is generally credited as the beginning of the LGBT rights movement.

Contents

History

Masthead from The Advocate, volume 1, issue 1

The Advocate was first published as a local newsletter by the activist group PRIDE (Personal Rights in Defense and Education) in Los Angeles. The newsletter was inspired by a police raid on Los Angeles gay bar the Black Cat Tavern on January 1, 1967, and the demonstrations against police brutality in the months following that raid.[1] Richard Mitch (using the pseudonym "Dick Michaels") and Bill Rau (under the name "Bill Rand") joined PRIDE and, along with Aristide Laurent and artist Sam Winston, transformed the newsletter into a newspaper titled The Los Angeles Advocate.[2] The first issue bore a cover date of September 1967, and was sold for 25 cents in gay bars in Los Angeles. By early 1968, PRIDE was struggling to stay viable and Mitch and Rau paid the group one dollar for ownership of the paper in February of that year.[3] In 1969 the newspaper was renamed The Advocate and distributed nationally. By 1974, Mitch and Rau were printing 40,000 copies for each issue.

The newspaper attracted the attention of David Goodstein, an investment banker from San Francisco who bought the publication in 1974. Under Goodstein's direction, The Advocate transformed into a bi-weekly national news magazine covering events important to the GLBT community, including the gay rights movement, art and culture. Goodstein also worked toward reducing sex-oriented advertisements in favor of more mainstream sponsors.

Goodstein and Dr. Rob Eichberg created "The Advocate Experience". Loosely based on the then-popular EST (Erhardt Seminars Training), it was a two-weekend, all-day series of extensive self-realization workshops to bring self-acceptance, awareness and tolerance within the LGBT community. Goodstein and Eichberg facilitated the workshops for much of their duration. Goodstein's later editorials remained strongly opposed to state intervention during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. He argued even though "our lifestyle can become an elaborate suicidal ritual, ...our safety and survival depends on each of us and our individual behaviour", as opposed to government public health regulations.[4]

Soon after Goodstein's death in 1985, the magazine was transformed from a tabloid-size newspaper format in two sections (with the second section carrying sexually explicit advertisements), to a standard magazine format, beginning with the October 1, 1985 issue.[5] The magazine stopped carrying sexually explicit advertisements in 1992, with the launch of a newly created sister publication, Advocate Classifieds. The magazine changed hands through a series of mergers and acquisitions, and is now published by Here Media. In a cost-cutting move in 2008, Here Media, conceding that The Advocate print edition could no longer compete with local weekly LGBT newspapers and the Internet for hard news, switched the magazine from a bi-weekly to a monthly publication cycle.[6]

Starting in 2010, Here Media consolidated the distribution for The Advocate and Out magazines. The Advocate print version continues to be published and is available enclosed with Out as a combination package via subscription.

In 2010 there were press reports of freelance writers not being paid for their work.[7] The Advocate is now published bi-monthly with 6 issues per year.

Contributors

Notable writers, present and past

Notes

  1. ^ Camprehoboth article
  2. ^ Hogan and Hudson, p. 13
  3. ^ Tobin and Wicker, p. 80
  4. ^ David Goodstein (March 18, 1982). "Editorial". The Advocate. p. 6. 
  5. ^ Cover of The Advocate, October 1, 1985.
  6. ^ http://www.adweek.com/news/press/advocate-go-monthly-110784
  7. ^ Fleischer, Matthew (July 13, 2010). "‘The Advocate’ Does Not Pay Its Freelancers". FishbowlLA. Retrieved November 28, 2010. 

References

  • Hogan, Steve and Lee Hudson (1998) Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia. New York, Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-3629-6
  • Tobin, Kay and Randy Wicker (1972). The Gay Crusaders. New York, Paperback Library. LOC 79-187694.

Further reading

  • Streitmatter, Rodger (1995). Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America. Boston: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-19873-2. 
  • Thompson, Mark, ed. (1994). Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-13114-3. 

External links

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