NEW MEDIA

Editions to the periodical marketplace

By Sam Pfeifle

Word came out last Wednesday that Portland Business Journal publisher Ed Pickett would be taking on some added duties. Namely, a new free daily to be called the Portland Morning Sun.

To be published on weekdays only, in tabloid format, with about 5000 initial copies in the greater-Portland area, the Sun will have something of a tentative debut — and Pickett’s not saying when. “I believe in Murphy’s Law,” he says. “While we have a date in mind, we’re not going to announce it. If you announce a certain day and then you don’t start on that day, everybody gets all over you . . . I want to start it right.”

Pickett does say that he’s been considering this move for a while, but was spurred into action by the Portland Newspaper Guild’s threat to start their own independent paper if the Press Herald and Blethen don’t meet their demands soon. “That would so muddy the waters that it would be impossible for me to start my paper,” he says.

Though he has yet to hire a managing editor, Pickett says that editorial focus will make sure that “local news is first, state second, national third, international fourth. It takes a major national story to outweigh a local story.”

As for hiring the rest of the editorial staff, he says “I’ve had a number of applications from highly qualified journalists,” but that he is categorically “not hiring from the editorial staff of the Press Herald.” He thinks that “it’s preferable that someone have historical knowledge of the Portland area,” but they needn’t be locals.

“The most important thing is that they be good reporters and know how to beat the Press Herald.”

As far as that goes, the Press Herald published a story in their August 9 business section noting their top managers are not too worried about a daily that will start out with roughly one fifteenth of their circulation. Pickett says that there are plans to grow, however, “in a very short time.”

---

Further down the line, Kellie Arbor and Liz Gold, no strangers to publishing themselves, have a new magazine, to be called Slit, in the works for “late fall, early spring.”

Gold, a UMaine-Orono graduate and Portland native, published a magazine called Loop in conjunction with the women’s studies department as an undergrad, and has written as a freelancer for both CBW and the Brunswick Times Record. Partner Arbor arrived in Portland just recently, after publishing a zine called Vizion Clot in Burlington, Vermont, while attending the University of Vermont.

Together, the pair plan to focus on writing and art that “is an expression of different voices that aren’t necessarily heard,” says Gold, including those “focusing on young, feminist, and queer issues.”

“We’re just putting out feelers right now,” says Gold, but “I’d love to see it come out monthly or every other month. We’ll see how it goes and see how people latch onto it.” They plan to keep it black and white, with glossy cover, at the 8.5 by 11 size.

However, it won’t be your standard magazine-rack fare. “We want to revise what a magazine looks like,” says Arbor. “I really like the cut and paste look of zines. Usually, when they go professional they tone it down, make it look like a ‘professional magazine.’ I’d like to take elements of both and make it a really sexy magazine.”

“I’d like to see 68 to 80 pages,” says Gold, “but we’ll see about funding and how we can pay for it.”

Arbor emphasizes that they’d like to keep the magazine free. “We’re not going to sell the magazine,” she says. “I’d rather have people donate money.”

As for that name, “I let people decide what it means for them,” says Gold. “It has different definitions for different people. I’m feminist and I’m queer, but I want it to be a community magazine. The goal is to make it accessible for a straight guy to pick it up.”

Interested parties should contact them at lizgold@hotmail.com.