Online Partners owns PlanetOut, Gay.com, the Advocate and other Liberation Publications and God knows what else. The disclosure that this new national Gay media monopoly is forgiving $200,000 in loans to the Millennium March and that the Human Rights Campaign board is considering forgiving $360,000 in loans should come as no surprise to anyone (Dec. 8, Blade; see related story in this issue). This was, after all, their march from the beginning.
Forgiving the loans hardly makes them heroes of our community; it is their responsibility. Both have profited enormously from the investment, both make no apology for the role money (often and increasingly from outside our community) plays in their agenda, and both have boards that are not elected or determined by the community at large.
The march's message, purpose, name and date was determined, financed, and promoted by HRC (despite their claims to the contrary) and subsidized by a new national Gay media monopoly motivated more by money than by social consciousness or Gay activism. There is no question that media monopoly Online Partners and political giant HRC command enormous support among our community. What is troubling is that they are driven more by acquisition of capital than any accountability to the community they serve.
Increasingly, that money is coming from outside our community and it is determining the message, the strategy, and the approach to activism. Any accountability for the decisions these organizations make is restricted to withholding our financial support from the only national media organization and political, lobbying organization serving our community. |
