Gayzette to Fold; Victim of 3-Newspaper Competition

The owner of the 4-year-old Gayzette, one of three weekly newspapers catering to San Diego’s gay community, said Wednesday that she has decided to cease publication.

“Basically, what it was was burnout,” Carla Coshow said. “I have gone on to other things. There is a time for everything, I imagine. There are a ton of reasons, but I would say burnout is the main reason.”

Coshow declined to discuss the paper’s finances, saying only that it “was never a moneymaker.” She said last year was the first year that she had not had to put her own money into operating the publication. The Gayzette had an estimated circulation of 10,000.

Others in the gay community said the Gayzette was a victim of competition for advertising brought about by the creation last spring of a third paper, San Diego Scene. This cut into the revenue that had been shared by the Gayzette and the Update.

Of the three weeklies, the Update has the largest circulation, about 19,000. The Scene has a circulation of about 6,000.

“There was kind of a newspaper war going on, although no one would say it,” said Nicole Ramirez-Murray, a founder of San Diego Scene and now a columnist for it. “There has usually been one or two newspapers, but never three.

“Advertisers were saying we cannot support three newspapers, and everyone was wondering how it would end up.”

That view was shared by Robert Potvin, manager of the West Coast Production Co., a popular discotheque frequented by gays. He said many businesses have been advertising in all three newspapers, but were forced to buy smaller ads.

“You only have so much of a budget, and when there is another paper, you have to accommodate the community,” Potvin said.

The Gayzette had six full-time employees, including its editor, and relied on about a dozen free-lance writers and columnists for its editorial content, according to Lair Davis, a founder of the Gayzette and its last editor.

Davis, now an editor at the Scene, said that at least four of the Gayzette’s full-time employees have found jobs at the Scene, and the paper expects to carry stories by many of the Gayzette’s former writers.

Goshow told Gayzette employees about two weeks ago that the paper would be closed unless a buyer was found, Davis said. As recently as Monday, Coshow had told some employees that she was negotiating with a prospective buyer, he added. (Coshow said Wednesday that she has had three offers from local individuals to purchase the paper but declined to give any names.)

“It was the classic case of the underfinanced small business,” Davis said of the closing. “We saw it coming. All the employees were beginning to consider other possibilities.”

The Gayzette and Update are considered more serious in content and tone than Scene, which promotes itself as an alternative to the two other papers.

“The Gayzette was a real newspaper, about not just the gay community, but the Hillcrest area,” said Neil Good, an aide to San Diego County Supervisor Leon Williams and who is active in gay community issues. Hillcrest is an area where a large number of gays reside.

“The Gayzette was the Time magazine (of the local gay community), the Update was the Newsweek and Scene is the People Magazine,” Ramirez-Murray said.

Scene was sold about two weeks ago to the F Street Corp., a privately held company that operates a chain of adult bookstores and a men’s health club and movie theater. The latter two businesses cater to gays, and the company advertises heavily in the gay press.