NYC newsdaily announces weekly LGBT news pull-out section

Calling it the first time that a daily US newspaper will offer a weekly section with a focus on LGBT news, N.Y. De Dia says that they will feature a four-page pull-out supplement called "Dimensión LGBT" every Tuesday.

Content for the supplement, an editorial says, will come from the Latino Commission on AIDS and three of its programs (full disclosure: I am a former employee of the agency).

News of the publication actually came my way via Twitter from Mexican LGBT news webportal Anodis. Today they Tweeted that some of their content will also be used (I assume it's through an agreement with the Commission).

I spent some time visiting the online site for N.Y. De Dia and saw limited original reporting and lots of wire stories. It's par for the course for several low-staffed freebie newspapers in New York fighting for advertising dollars - including several Spanish-language publications. Still, all in all, it was a good mix of current local, national and international stories.

I was caught off-guard by one segment in the editorial:

With this decision [to publish the weekly supplement], we do not take upon, nor support criteria related to marriages between members of the same sex, whether they can or can't have children among other things, but instead we are a window to diversity, a writing wall which - through tolerance - allows the airing of opinions without others crossing the limits of respectfulness.

Bizarre. You trump the fact that you are running the first ever weekly LGBT news supplement for a US daily in one breath but then say that it doesn't mean you have any position whatsoever about LGBT rights. Read: Gay advertising dollars, yes! Editorial backing of LGBT rights, no! Well, good luck with that.

The leading Spanish-language newspaper in New York, El Diario La Prensa, has ran an annual LGBT pride special supplement for years and has also editorially backed marriage equality on several ocasions. So did their leading but now defunct contender Hoy. Back in the naughties LGNY, the weekly newspaper that was reborn as Gay City News, also had a generous bi-lingual Latino section. The only other daily newspaper I know that has a weekly stand-alone LGBT news supplement is Argentina's Pagina/12 and their Soy supplement on Thursdays. In that regard, N.Y. De Dia can safely claim that they are the first daily to run an LGBT supplement in the United States.

An aside: The other leading Latino HIV service organization in the city, the Hispanic AIDS Forum, also has ties to another LGBT-specific publication called "Zona Rosa" ("Pink Zone"). You can peruse and print issue one here and issue two here.