Welcome.
This is the first edition of the new Windy City Times, a combined effort of the two oldest gay and lesbian newsweeklies in Chicago, Windy City Times ( founded 1985 ) and Outlines ( founded 1987 ) .
Fifteen years ago this week, several staff members of GayLife newspapers decided to walk out and form a new gay paper, Windy City Times. Jeffrey McCourt, Bob Bearden, Drew Badanish and I were to head the effort, and many others helped create WCT. When Bearden passed away due to AIDS complications, many of us decided to leave to start Outlines, and a healthy 13-year competition began.
Then, in late July of this year, Jeffrey McCourt decided he wanted to pursue other creative interests, and Lambda Publications made an offer to purchase the name Windy City Times. After several weeks of negotiations, Lambda, publishers of Outlines and other gay and lesbian papers, entered into an agreement to re-publish WCT.
Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of people, what you are now seeing is the first edition of the new Windy City Times, just as the paper celebrates the start of its 16th year.
We have many great plans for the combined efforts of WCT and Outlines, using the "best of both worlds," writers, photographers, sales reps, and other people associated with both papers to create one of the top GLBT papers in the U.S. We are fortunate to have so many talented people already contributing to Lambda through all of our six papers, especially BLACKlines, En La Vida and Nightlines. Each of them will now have an opportunity to expand their horizons as additional space and resources become available through the new WCT.
The re-design of WCT was done by talented local lesbian artist Dawn Hancock, co-owner of Someoddpilot.com, a design firm. Dawn and I have been burning the midnight oil trying to start off the new combined newspaper with a big bang, and we hope you enjoy this very special issue.
Thanks also to the hundreds of community members—activists, readers, advertisers and others—who have offered their words of encouragement and support. This outpouring of well wishes validates our reasons for making this great leap, and we look forward to your continued input.
The gay media is at an interesting turning point. With the world wide web allowing for faster access to information, weekly and monthly GLBT publications must redefine and refocus their mission to stay competitive and relevant for their readers and advertisers.
One way to do that is to make sure we always represent and include a great diversity of voices from all parts of our community.
While the mainstream media often does cover the top gay stories, those stories represent only the "tip of the iceberg" of our movement. There are thousands of stories of GLBT people in the city and suburbs doing great work, through volunteer efforts, on staffs of organizations ( gay and mainstream ) , and by hosting benefits.
Because many of our writers, photographers and other contributors are an integral part of that community, we believe we have a great sense of the "pulse" of the Chicago GLBT movement. We will continue to encourage community involvement by all of our contributors because in order to stay relevant, we must all continually educate ourselves about who is doing what, where, when and how in this large and ever-growing community.
What do you want to see in this "best of both worlds" new Windy City Times/Outlines? Please feel free to let us know, and look soon for a great new re-design of the website for WCT.