Despite the alternative press' willingness to promote adult entertainment, backpedaling is on the rise. In the early 1900s, about 60 percent of U.S. cities supported at least two daily newspapers. Now, it's about 1 percent. The number of cities with two newspapers fell from about 500 in 1920 to about a dozen today, thanks in part to competition from other news media, such as television and the internet. Additionally, thanks to widespread mergers and consolidations, the company that owns the daily newspaper may also own a television and/or a radio station, further reducing the number of voices and venues available to readers and viewers. Few media businesses can record a city's history as thoroughly as a daily newspaper, but a paper without competition can get lazy and less willing to confront or offend, or to make the investment in quality reporting and investigative pieces. That kind of vastly reduced competition has put alternative papers in the position of filling the gap, providing valuable platforms for opposing viewpoints and gutsier coverage of local institutions than many mainstream news organizations. But the flip side of that is that the weeklies have also become more mainstream themselves as they seek a broader audience in their communities. The Weekly, the Observer, and many other alternative weeklies are reducing the number of adult ads and restricting their size, display, and content. In November, Boulder Weekly decided to scratch photos from adult ads, which had become overrun with "tits and ass," said Janice Haines, the paper's accountant. The 9-year-old paper was printing about 3,000 ads a week, most of them adult ads. Initially, the policy change caused the number of ads in each edition to drop by about half, but the total is growing again. The paper is now running about 2,500 ads, Haines said. "We went through a dip because it was a loss of income," she said. "Initially it was quite a chunk." Mainstream advertisers responded by buying ads and filling holes. "It's working," she said. "We feel pretty good about it. I'd say we have recovered." The paper's owner and publisher, Stewart Sallo, made the decision to censor the ads. He wrote an explanatory column saying the paper had published the ads for two reasons -- money and a hesitation to censor material. Prostitution should be legal, Sallo wrote, but it's not, and the sex trade is enmeshed with illegal activities. The paper felt the need to "position ourselves alongside the solution while abandoning our alignment with the problem," he wrote. The paper didn't ban the ads, but figured removing photos and restricting language would make them less popular. The decision was financially a "painful one" but "doing our part to create a world in which people love those with whom they make love is worth every penny we forsake," he concluded, rather ickily. The paper's editor, Wayne Laugesen, said the policy had been debated for years. Most editorial staffers, including Laugesen, fought to keep the ads because of free-speech principles. But Laugesen, like the alternative weekly industry as a whole, mellowed in time. He has three young children and disliked taking his own newspaper into his house for fear a young'un would get an eyeful. "It bordered on pornography," he said. Staffers revolted lightly, but quickly went back to work. "Some got on their principle horses, but nobody rode out," he said. Public feedback was split. Feminists and the religious community applauded the change. The publisher received a standing ovation at his synagogue. "On the other hand, we have had a lot of negative feedback as well," Laugesen said. "We heard from people who thought these ads were very useful in planning their weekends. There are still prostitutes advertising in this newspaper, but they are not overt and boldly advertising themselves. You really have to use your imagination now to determine if someone is a prostitute advertising his or her services." The Observer toned down its ads last year and is planning more restrictions, Draper said. "Back in November, I made a decision that we'd gone too far and we needed to scale it back," she said. "This is a business we don't pursue -- they come to us. Obviously we want to keep the door open to all kinds of businesses and new advertisers, but it was too heavy." Still, the Observer's adult section remains spicier than the Weekly's. "Being in Fort Worth, we have to be more conservative as far as our advertising," an ad rep said. "Now that we're getting more adult advertising, we want to nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand. We didn't want to get out of hand like the Observer did. Their ads were very revealing." Lee Newquist, the Weekly's publisher, filled that post for years at the Observer before buying the Weekly. At the Weekly, he has insisted on containing adult ads in back pages and limiting their display. "I do not want this to become a large section filled with spicy, objectionable material," he said. Let's be clear, however. You wouldn't want to hand either paper's adult ad section to your Sunday school teacher. The March 21 Observer contained ads with nearly nude women in seductive poses and hardly vague ad copy such as, "I will satisfy you in any way you want," "get some now," "try me from the south," and "sexy petite female ready to caress your hard times away." The Weekly offered "young and very sexy," "hot local girls," and "afternoon delight." Publishers are dipping a toe into the mainstream pool but still take pride in their revolutionary roots. There remains a conviction on the editorial side that reporters can write without fear, and use "fuck" or even "third nipple" (at least I think we can; if this sentence gets edited out, I guess we can't). But the words are seldom used gratuitously (except in that last sentence) and there is little desire to upset readers just to be potty-mouths. "A paper like ours has evolved over the years to be a metropolitan newsweekly rather than an alternative," Newquist said. "It's a better vision. We can preserve the spirit of what alternative newspapers were all about, but it's a much more deliberate marketing plan than what was seen 20 years ago."NEXT » |
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