This year marks twenty years of queer media in Western Australia. Alex Maltby caught up with Paul Bluett, former Editor/owner of OUTinPerth for personal take on life in the queer press…
In terms of a consistent gay and lesbian community publication the first edition was printed as WSO: West Side Observer. I didn’t get involved for at least a year and a half or so after that start and my role was very much social photography, gossip column type things. [laughs] I might have been bonking someone who was involved, at the time… that was my initial introduction! I can’t remember how old I was, maybe 21, and completely naïve, didn’t have a clue, about anything, had just come out, got involved in the old GAGS – Gay Activity Group Service that existed in those days. Only vaguely knew about anything, really, but got involved in running the film festival for them, one of the early ones at the Alexander Library. And the Christians! The lovely Christians found out about it and though that they’d picket it and so they all turned up, and we didn’t have too many patrons at the time, because it was too early. The media turned up with them and wanted a bun fight, and, basically I was the only one who was prepared to speak on the telly, be interviewed, and so that was kind of like, that woke up my political head and my willingness to be involved. So I did that interview and said ‘I’m gay, so what? Running a gay film festival, so what? Come and have a look, you know, if you’re so interested in the films, come in a buy a ticket.’ Of course after that, they went home and started ringing all my family saying ‘Guess what? On the news tomorrow…’ and so I basically had to come out. I think I had already told my mother, but had to come out to my father, had to tell my grandparents. All my family was great, they probably said, well, we knew he was a poof anyway.. I remember my Dad giving me a hug and saying ‘You’re my son, you always will be, gave me a kiss on the cheek and said I love you.’ I just thought it was so fabulous to have a Father who was a shearer, and not so much rough and ready, but who lived a completely different lifestyle, knew nothing about it much, and yet could respond like that to me, it was fabulous.
I think I saw how hard it was for some other people to come out, and AIDS was happening at the same time and it all just sort of inspired me to do something which is, in a way, why the paper started in the first place, even though I wasn’t part of that first group. It was in a way, very much a group of people looking at the bad things that were happening out there and saying ‘Why isn’t’ something doing anything about it?’. And realising that they were sitting there being part of that group of people who weren’t doing anything about, and then deciding they would do something about it and that’s where the paper came from. Which is as good a way to start something as any, I think it’s fabulous that they were able to stop and look at themselves and say, well, we best do something about it.
Back in the early days the first people that started it were Gavin McGuren, Brian Card – who I think helped print it, initially – David Lewis, and then things developed from there. In ‘91 we became a partnership of about 10 investor partners who were a big help for us, but in a sense they were no say, no liability type partners, whereas Gavin McGuren and David Lewis and I were general partners and we had all say and all liability. Through the 90s, lots changed in print and production processes from the early days where the paper was photocopied, and it was just a little A5 publication – little as in size, not little as in less important! It changed -I can’t remember when it was, into a magazine for a while, an A4 size, glossy cover type thing. Both those processes were very expensive and eventually we decided that newspaper was cheaper, for the money we were already paying in printing we could print thousands more copies so we changed over. In terms of production we went from having to paste up – like print out stories and cut them out and paste them on to a big layout sheet and then send that off to be turned into a big bromide. It was a very manual, tiring, tedious process, and got done thanks to people like Sue Ravine who used to work on that side of things, but all that changed when everything went digital, from photography to the whole layout process. Obviously computers developed a lot over that time, the internet became much more important and even the ability of software to actually manage publications, all that developed, to my mind, over the 90s. Until basically when we hit 2000 or so, when OUTinPerth itself was first published things were almost automated and the emphasis was a very different in terms of staffing needed for production, for story writing and photography, that type of thing.
We did used to sell the paper back in the early days, We dropped the sale bit, part of the evolution of the paper in terms of size, going from magazine, moving up to newspaper, the whole idea, and then having the internet site attached to the paper as well, was to increase people’s access to it. And though we needed to charge for it in the early days, because we couldn’t afford to produce it otherwise, the change to newspaper, helped us move away from having to charge for it, because we wanted people just to be able to pick it up, for free, and just have it. And in fact in presenting the publication, one of the key things for us was to have it sitting there, in people’s faces, on the street, not just in venues where people could tuck it under their arm and go away with it, but also out in public, something we could stick in shopping centres and fruit and veg stores and cafés and all those kind of places where it’s just there for those who want to read it, and perhaps and education for those who don’t want to read it. Visibility comes back to why I think print publications are essential and will remain essential.
The lowlights, well, there were regular lowlights which were the revolting things that people like the West Australian, or the writers in the West Australian, let alone the newspaper itself, there were lots of lowlights in terms of what the newspaper used to say about gay and lesbian people. Back in the very early days there were lots of lowlights to do with HIV and AIDS. At the paper we very strongly supportive of the AIDS Council development and advertising and education for gay men and injecting drug users, etcetera. I used to work for the AIDS Council as well, for about 6 years I think – and there were lots of horrible times that were interconnected to do with those issues. I think people remember the early days, you know ‘the gay plague’ and ‘kill all poofters’ and that sort of stuff, but it’s amazing, even though it was a long stretch, it’s still really a short period of time for people to have changed so much.
The law reform, although that took a while to come, it was a definite highlight that it did, and maybe a low light that it took so long, having not just homosexuality decriminalised, but basically some rights instituted. And I guess, going from memory that it wasn’t until 2001 that full law reform pretty much was brought in. Which at the time was fabulous, obviously, looking back on it, every time I think about I think how weird, that the paper itself was started in 87, and it took 14 years of not just the paper, but political groups, lobby groups, people working their guts out like Brian Greig and a whole pile of other people to actually get law reform in West Australia. And I suppose equally, the fact that we published a publication, for that whole period, when in effect we were promoting something that was illegal.There’s still negative attitudes out there gay bashing and horrible things like that but I’m glad there’s a central core of people, and that includes ourselves as gay and lesbian people, who are much more aware and sensible and fair and equal about how we treat each other. That’s a highlight to me, out of the whole process.
Another lowlight when Satellite media took over, there was the buy up of gay and lesbian newspapers around the country, I think it was 2000, and we were purchased towards the end. It was a real disappointment when basically they went bust in September – October of that year, we’d only been with them for about 8 months or so. It was a true collapse, we got maybe an hour’s notice from the east and the administrators walked in the door and locked the place down. We allowed to take wallets, and very obviously personal items and were basically booted out the door. And that was a bit traumatic! Apart from all the lost wages and entitlements and whatever that all went to the wind – I think it was losing the history.
And Gavin McGuren and I sat down and basically said, well what we do? – and we basically said, well, we’ll restart. And it was kind of a traumatic period, having lost all the computers and everything, and so having to run out and try and buy new equipment, but I think we did pretty well and came out about a week later with a new publication, which was called QWest and was a very interim, thrown together kind of thing. And then about six months after that, after having time to do a bit more thinking and planning, we relaunched as Shout. Relaunching as Shout was a highlight. I wouldn’t call the QWest time a bad time, a lowlight time, but it was disappointing because of the lost history and the schisms.
Shout was a really great idea, we were looking for a more visual, art based thing, something a bit groovier, and it in fact it was so groovy that another company decided that they liked it, and wanted to buy it. Which was great, again, I think. When they bought it Gavin McGuren went with the paper, he’d always had a great interest in the arts scene, so in a sense, he went off with that. Having looked at it, the new publishers didn’t seem to be interested in the real community based stuff, and the personal type thing, and so I was allowed to produce a very personal gay and lesbian community type paper and so that’s when Out in Perth was born, and we chugged along for a while.
I’ve lived with the paper, I’ve lived in the same house as the paper for some years, I haven’t always bought my house to suit the paper but often it’s been, you know important that there’s been rooms for offices, etcetera. So I’m looking at probably moving house, and kind of like, finding somewhere a bit more conducive to a normal home. I’m trying to paint my house! And I’ve been having a bit of a holiday, a bit of a recovery after a lot of hard slog doing the paper and now I’m not quite sure what I want to do. I mean I love media itself, but whether I carry on into a different media kind of role, or whether I go back to some of the work I did before, which is education and training in the areas of sexuality, that’s another option, but at the moment, I’m just worried about painting.
