When the long-running D.C. gay newspaper Washington Blade shut down yesterday without warning, its owner was in talks to sell it to the publisher of a Virginia newspaper.
Nicholas Benton, who publishes the Falls-Church News Press, put out a statement today saying he had won a bid to purchase the paper from its parent company, Window Media. He was in negotiations with the company as well as the Small Business Administration to finalize the deal.
Then Benton heard the news: Window and all of its publications, including the Blade, closed yesterday.
“We thought everything was going swimmingly,” Benton told TPM. “I’d like to know what’s going on.”
Benton has not been able to get in touch with anyone from Window Media or the SBA, he said. (The SBA took over Window’s major stakeholder, Avalon Equity, in August 2008 when it failed to comply with its contract. Avalon had taken a $38 million loan from the SBA in 2000.)
And although Benton had been keen to buy the Blade — promising to continue its legacy and keep on the entire staff — he doesn’t expect the deal to go forward.
“From my point of view, right now the whole thing is off,” he said. “The whole point of it was a seamless transition. If a newspaper stops publishing even for a day … its value [goes down]. Its advertisers freak out.”
But, he said, he’d be willing to talk with members of the Blade staff who’ve said they expect to form their own employee-run paper. He hasn’t yet been in contact with those staffers.
“I assume that will happen,” he said.
Benton declined to say how much he offered for the paper.
A spokesman for the SBA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The SBA also didn’t answer questions from the Gay City News about the liquidation of Window Media’s assets, but said in a statement that such a liquidation will only cover about $7 million of Avalon’s debt to the agency.
The News also reports that the SBA’s lawyers reported in October that they were considering purchase offers for the publications.
Two of Window’s publications, 411 Magazine and the South Florida Blade, were apparently sold, and will now be published by a Florida company called Multimedia Platforms LLC.
Late update: The SBA tells us that they had no say in any sales by Window, but merely fielded offers and forwarded them on.
“As receiver, SBA solicited offers to purchase the financially troubled newspapers and received offers to purchase two of them, and passed those offers on through Avalon to Window/Unite Media, which is wholly responsible for any decision to sell or not sell the newspapers properties it owns,” spokesman Dennis Byrne wrote in an email.
Late late update: The SBA tells us they received two offers for Window publications. The other was for the Southern Voice.
