After hearing the rumors, some good news from Queerty that they are back in business, with new owners and slightly new approach. A few weeks ago, we reported that Queerty had shuttered after their former owners decided to shut down the site.
Well, the site is back under the control of GayCities and its founder, Chris Bull (who did stints at The Advocate and PlanetOut). Here’s what Bull says about the rejuvenated brand.
While we are committed to maintaining the best of Queerty, we also recognize that you have demanded change. In recent months the Queerty patented wit devolved into predictable snark, eviscerating everyone and everything in its path. Some of the comments simply piled on. We will maintain the independent voice at all cost, going after with a vengeance the powerful, the hypocritical and the just plain foolish. But now we’ll also strive for a better sense of journalistic balance and fairness.
And here’s a comment from David Hauslaib, Queerty’s founder.
There is a reason I decided to launch Queerty back in 2006: I saw a void in queer media, with far too many outlets unwilling to challenge institutions, lawmakers, and positions, which were accepted as truth-tellers and hard, unchangeable facts. But I also wanted to see more stories told about LGBT people, from our heroes to our villains, our teens to our seniors, our celebrities to our everyday gays. Queerty accomplished so much it set out to do, but like the news cycle we covered, its mission is never-ending. There is more work to be done. More posts to be published. More fundamental rights to be secured. More kids to celebrate, and more souls to mourn. More songs to scour. More trash to talk, and more sex to scandalize. More acceptance to be had, and more minds to change. And most of all, more gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people to remind and reassure that we’re all in this together.
While Queerty has its detractors, it has an interesting place in the LGBT media mix. The combination of original reporting and aggregation sets it apart from other sites that are all commentary or all aggregation. There is room for lots of different models, but the original reporting/aggregation approach is one that is being modeled in the larger media world. It’s also good to see Bull’s commitment to “journalistic balance and fairness.”