From being a magazine that built a reputation for unbiased & extensive coverage, quality & quantified reports & features and generally supporting the diversity that was the gay scene across London, Boyz has effectively ruined its reputation by becoming a mouth piece for Orange Nation, our most controversial seventh day sermon yet looking at this publications past, its present and what holds for its future.
Journalism can be a funny business sometimes, one just has to look at recent examples here in the UK such as the overt intrusion on the private lives of The Royal Family, the cash for questions, the MP’s expenses and the phone hacking scandals, the latter actually toppling one of the country’s most popular newspapers, while when you drill into both the broadsheets & the tabloids, you can find within the pole to p scale of reporting, a tinge of bias, whether it be from a political or a personal point of view. And as we are in the midst of a possible parliamentary vote on the Leveson Inquiry, while the UK can still be proud of both its freedom of speech and relative freedom of press reporting, there can be no doubt that the microscope is definitely on us journalists and the industry in general. Mind you, back home in South Africa, we still find a culture post the apartheid era where press freedom is still yet to be achieved and the ruling ANC party are still both censoring & suppressing subversive & controversial journalism in defence of elements of corruption & bad practice within the government. So, having experienced this censorship first hand in South Africa and have, in our current reporting role on the capitals clubbing scene, also been subject to heavy handed & suppressive tactics by certain club owners & promoters, we have always prided ourselves on attempting to strike a balance, report both fairly, accurately, constructively yet truthfully and in the spirit of our independent status and the freedom we enjoy, occasionally speak out on burning issues of the day, regardless of the fear of retribution as a result, this surely the spirit of journalism at its best.
So we place intrinsic important & real value on those principles, ones which we, in our early days of reporting on the London scene, looked to the weekly gay magazines in circulation as equally shining examples of this spirit of unbiased coverage, fair & accurate reporting, qualified & quantified features and generally supporting the diversity that was the rich playing field of the London scene, one admired around the world. And in those early days back in 2008/09 when we emerged, among others, we very much looked to Boyz magazine for inspiration, we having built a solid working relationship with the whole team in our previous club management role and during this time we were always impressed with both the quality & spread of coverage of the scene, the magazine probably the best in terms of supporting bars, through to clubs, events & festivals in the broadest sense of the word, while naturally it did hone on of some of the bigger club brands from time to time, G.A.Y. & XXL tow examples. But even up to about eighteen months ago the quality & quantity of its weekly publications commanded both a respectable reputation, while there were occasional & inevitable question marks over some elements & content, not least its annual awards ceremony & process, one which has, from other examples such as SeenQueen, been subject to tampering & foul play.
Yet with that respected reputation and a history that spans over twenty years, the last two have seen Boyz deteriorate into nothing more than a front for a clubbing conglomerate that itself has a considerably tarnished reputation, a mere glance through any recent copy of the magazine reflecting outrageously biased coverage towards Orange Nation and its bevy of brands, this year in particular seeing, particularly in terms of quantity, paltry reviews, reports & features each and every week on clubs Beyond, A:M, & Later, while completely overlooking others that, in earlier days would have benefitted from the magazines support & coverage. And we are not the only ones to extol this view, as the talk of the town is exactly the same as ours, remarks such as “…it’s become nothing more than pictorial press print…”, “…it’s the Orange Nation rag…” and “…it’s a comic of shameful proportions…”. And while we perhaps have to admit that, in terms of clubbing, the scene has shrunk considerably in recent times, we all know who are the culprits for both the competition crushing & denigration of the diversity of the capitals circuit, Boyz’s coverage clearly a voice for this catastrophic collapse, the first half of last week’s rag for instance, completely packed with all things Orange Nation, whether it was double sided adverts, half page insulting to intelligence interviews or simply a repetition of what was reported & featured in previous weeks, although we temper that criticism for this week’s edition at least, where there seems to be a slightly better spread.
Then we come to the annual Boyz awards, a controversial calamity indeed, as there have always been question marks, admittedly more so in recent times, over the validity of the process and while we would never site vote rigging or corruption within its structure or by prospective nominees, we cannot help but notice that three quarters of the club category awards this year have gone to Orange Nation clubs, events, promoters, D.J.’s & hosts, which, for us at least, rings a few alarm bells. However, looking at the awards as a whole, it is actually pleasing to see a spread of support, from cabaret venues, bars, clubs events & festivals, this very much a reflection of what Boyz’s previous respectable reputation was always built upon. We are particularly pleased with the “Outstanding Contribution” awards, both recipients, Jimmy Smith of The Two Brewers & Mark Oakley of The Eagle, richly deserved of this accolade, not least that they have worked tirelessly on behalf on their venues & the wider scene, this the spirit of what Boyz as a magazine was always about, but seems, of late, to be sorely lacking. Their awards aside, it is unquestionably clear that Boyz as a balanced, unbiased & quality publication falls woefully short of previous reasonable & respectable expectations, especially when you compare it to the likes of its counterpart in the weekly stakes, Q.X., while we fear that this obvious dependence that Boyz has on Orange Nation for advertising & coverage is fraught with looming problems on a number of fronts, while what was a huge happening on the scene just yesterday, the “A New Beginning” event at Covert received less than a paragraph mention, evidence enough of the politics that appear to riddle this once respected rag.
So, like the inevitable regulation of the national press in some form or another following the now politically & press pivotal Leveson Inquiry, as David Cameron is on the verge of brokering a deal with his cross party counterparts, thus avoiding a humiliating vote defeat, we hope that the powers that be in Boyz will also wake up & smell the realisation of just how they are viewed by a sizable proportion of the clubbing scene and, in doing so, attempt to re-address their reporting balance & restore that respectable reputation they have lost, or risk being the gay magazine version of The News Of The World. (DISCO MATT)
