OK, I'm sure some of you have heard about this week's acquisition of LPI Media (publisher of The Advocate and Out, as well as my publishing company Alyson Books and all of Specialty Publiations' titles like Unzipped, Men, Freshmen and [2]) by Planet Out (of PlanetOut.com and Gay.com).
There seems to be some controversy surrounding this marriage, particularly in that many believe that this signifies a monopolization on the part of Planet Out to control gay media. The Advocate and Out already have a monopoly on magazine publishing, often snagging "exclusive" rights to major stories so that no other gay magazines can carry the same story until after theirs has run (I've lost out on several stories, in particular articles on Brokeback Mountain and a few gay singer-songwriters b/cuz the people involved were not allowed to speak to me until a certain date). Many see this as the arrogance of a company trying to run smaller magazines into the ground; some simply see it as them following the standard practices of journalistic "scooping." (Admittedly, every magazine wants to be the one who breaks the story and gets the exclusive. Can't really blame them there, but it still sucks for the rest of us.)
Anyway, I'm wondering what people think of this merger.
You can find out more about it here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&type=business
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