BLACKHEART Cleveland

R.A. Washington:

we ask for more media outlets, more alternatives to the shit we get, but when they crop up, we dont support them. sure we pick em up and put it in our bags, carry issues around but we do not support them as we should. and we dont have the money to support them without the help of advertising, and local businesses are hurting too much to use their limited resources and advertise with start-ups.

we all know the issues. we all know solutions. i just wonder what we are waiting for.

Rafeeq is right on the money.  When I first moved to Cleveland almost 6 years ago, there was a great glossy mag run by Daniel Gray-Kontar called Urban Dialect. It ended up folding rather soon after I wrote two music reviews for it. Probably my fault. That was my first brush with the ephemeral world of Cleveland indie media. The publication cycle is one of perennial sprout and wither for these grassroots, passion-filled people.

The issues are easy to enumerate. Here’re a few:

1. The Plain Dealer, Cleveland Scene and oft-forgotten stepchild Sun Newspapers aren’t doing a good enough job covering local news.
2. Other publications, like the Plain Press, don’t cover the same topical material.
3. Obtaining funding or advertising to produce the physical publication can be so time consuming that the writing suffers.
4. Finding and keeping a good depth of passionate writers is difficult, especially if you can’t pay.
5. The process takes a lot of work.

I don’t know what all the solutions are that Rafeeq alludes to, but I’ve got at least two ideas that I feel have wings.

• Collaboration & Cooperation, not Competition: The people involved in these local publications need to share content, writers and funding in order to stay afloat. These local magazines might see each other as competitors when they should be thinking of them as teammates. Anyway, sharing funding is probably the craziest idea that just might work, especially if they’re poaching each other’s advertising dollars. That’s the way publishing houses or film studios work. The big sellers make it possible for the independent, smaller run books and films to be made. The analogy doesn’t exactly cross-over into the independent media, but there’s something to be said for having independent media (if they insist on remaining a print publication) Co-Operate with each other, even if it does smack of *gasp* socialism. I derived this part from the assumption that the people writing these publications aren’t just doing it for the money.
• Cyberspace over Meatspace: You can setup a fully functional web-site for under $300 these days if you’re tech savvy. If you’re not, you’ll have to pay someone who is to get it setup for you, but the cost is negligible compared to producing an actual print publication. The only downside is that you don’t have the distribution or an actual physical object to hold and read while you’re at your 2 o’clock appointment. The website doesn’t preclude actually producing a print publication, and if you can’t afford to go print for a month, you’ve got the website to fall back on.

Here are some current independent publications that I know of:

• Messy Magazine - “an online, theme inspired publication focusing on the creative community in and around Cleveland, distributed from Cleveland. We showcase literary work, art, music, film, photography, DIY, you name it.”
• Pinkeye Arts Magazine - “covering local artists and gallery openings going on around town.”
• Faction Press/The Independent/Rust Belt Report - Ambitious, hoping to be an eventual Scene competitor/killer. First issue arrives August 5th.
  

There’s also the hyperlocal weblogs/print publications run as non-profits. It seems like someone decided to monetize the hyperlocal community weblog. None of these existed when I started Tremonter 4 years ago, but I’m glad to see that they’re around:

• Ohio City Argus - They don’t seem to be updating their site at all, but I picked up the actual physical paper the other day at Dave’s supermarket.
• Collinwood Observer - Same website design as the Argus, spun off from the Lakewood Observer.
• Heights Observer - Same deal as the previous two, only covering Cleveland/University Heights.
  

I’ve emailed whomever I can find as a contact at these publications, inviting them to come over to BHC and start a conversation.