The marriage magazine White is closing. Media reports claim they were hounded out of business because of their decision to not include same sex couples in their pages. Click here to read their farewell blog post and see a video they made explaining themselves.
They make it clear the title is not advertising driven. That leaves the decision to be either due to non viability of the title or them not wanting to deal with agitation for representation of all marriages.
In the video, one of the publishers talks about the marriage equality postal vote and their decision to not engage in it at the time:
we just didn’t want to enter into that conversation that wasn’t a loving conversation
I think that statement is problematic for them as it is a judgement from someone who says all they want to do is focus on loving.
The publishers have a right to publish the kind of magazine they want to publish.
Consumers have a right to purchase the kinds of magazines they want to read.
In a free market, magazines come and go because times change and the interest of people fades.
It is unfortunate the publishers and some news outlets are running the narrative that the title is closing because of actions by the LGBTQ community. I say unfortunate as it gives a platform for doing what they say was done to them, attacking unfairly.
In their farewell blog them make this point:
We hope that one day soon our society can learn to accept people’s differences and different points of view and love each other no matter what.
Australian society does accept differences. Towns and cities show this, every ay. Maybe not perfectly, but we show it. That fewer people bought their title because of their decision has nothing to do with expressing love for each other.
I like White, it was a good title. However, since Australia, and the parliament, decided that love is love, any title in the marriage space needs to embrace it to be relevant to today. Relevance is key to commercial success.
It could be that White is closing because it has not kept up with the times, because they refused to publish about all weddings. Regardless, it comes down to the commercial viability of the title.
Blaming others for the consequences of decisions you have made is poor form. That some media outlets have added to this false narrative and added their own agenda is poor editorial management.