NSFW

IML Coverage: Shame on Chicago Gay Media

There’s this huge convention in Chicago every Memorial Day weekend called International Mr. Leather (IML). Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It centers on a beauty contest for leathermen (who often are gay but don’t have to be to qualify), but includes many ancillary events—official and unofficial. About 35,000 people come from all over the world to attend it.

You would think the Chicago gay press would be all over it. But if you want any IML contest results, you need to go to Australia. SameSame.com.au has the most comprehensive coverage of the results that I could find. They clearly had a reporter on site for the contest. (The Sidney Star Observer and the Dallas Voice had more routine reporting.) Excluding Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, that’s the total news coverage on the web.

Like most years, the Chicago press couldn’t be bothered to post anything on their sites. It doesn’t speak well for local media when a news organization from thousands of mile away scoops a big, local story: This year a transman in a wheelchair won the contest.

Chicago’s big three gay news organizations, Windy City Media, Gay Chicago Magazine, and Chicago Free Press, aren’t going to survive the onslaught of the Internet with poor performances like this. 

UPDATE 3:35 PM: Just to be clear: I want a vibrant, local LGBT news media to survive because they are a vital part of any healthy, functional gay community. I just don’t see how they’re going to do it, if they don’t adapt to the realities of news-publishing today.