Not much of an alternative

A long time ago, the term “alternative press” used to mean something. Unfortunately, somebody discovered there was money to be made selling ads in the rags that catered to under employed, hipsters and poser white people. Apparently, these people (or their parents) had money to spend and merely represented another group of consumers.

I remember when The Pitch was first bought out. I was just starting college and noticed all of the stoners were bummed. I figured that somebody od’d and destroyed a favorite bong. It was worse, all of their friends got the ax and now nobody was around to report on their house parties, gay costume extravaganzas or some event that midtown white people refer to loosely as “entertainment.” Anyway, it was a house cleaning and a few of the leftover staffers (who didn’t wanna get real jobs) went on to form EKC.

Since then, The Pitch Weekly has become The Pitch . . . an arm of The New Times Media Corporation. Today, The New York Times reports that The New Times Media Empire is expanding:

The company that publishes The Village Voice and five other alternative newspapers is to announce today an agreement to be acquired by New Times Media, the largest publisher in the market. The deal would create a chain of 17 free weekly newspapers around the country with a combined circulation of 1.8 million.

This is a big deal, not only in terms of money but also when it comes to reportage. The “alternative” empire of the Tall Israelis is now consolidated. At one time The Pitch was a true representation of wing-nut, outsider and (more often than not) senseless local opinion. Currently, The Pitch is simply just another brand of corporate news. Sure, there are investigative pieces where the vast resources of the publisher are used against whatever easy target they pick out but more often than not the rag is simply a means to convey the advertisements of futon retailers and MLM schemes. Often the stories featured in the Pitch are merely fill-in-the-blank articles that lampoon a prominent public official not being gay friendly enough, expose a new gay trend or profile an up and coming (and possibly gay) local personality. There are a few reporters at The Pitch whose work goes beyond these generalizations but I’ve noticed that they are just as averse to this corporate style as I am.

What I find most disturbing is that so few of the writers of The Pitch are originally from KC. Like most professional journalists, many of the writers for The Pitch are merely transient members of the community. Anybody can learn facts but there are a few things about this town that you wouldn’t know unless you lived here for awhile. The newbie writers at The Pitch don’t know about the street crossing guard who used to wave at everybody on Southwest Trafficway, they weren’t here when the Royals won the World Series and Westport was packed with cheering fans, they didn’t watch local coverage when the catwalk at the Hyatt Regency collapsed and they don’t have parents who can tell them about the days when KC segregation was de jure rather than simply de facto. Even more, KC has a vibe that’s summed up with phrases like “Paris on the plains” and “cowtown” but rarely evoked in the pages of The Pitch.

While the rag will remain hopelessly liberal, it’s definitely anything but local.