Regular readers of the Blend have seen Pam link up and quote stories from qnotes a time or two. qnotes is the Carolinas-wide LGBT newspaper based in Charlotte (we share part of our market with the wonderful folks at Asheville's Stereotypd magazine).

Folks have seen the economy tumble and, with it, the decline of great LGBT newspapers in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Ft. Lauderdale. It is a tough and scary time for any print media and especially so for small, often under-funded and under-staffed LGBT media. The rise of the LGBT blogosphere has helped (rather than hurt, I think) and fills the gaps when traditional LGBT journos are stuck on tight print deadlines or face the unthinkable (shutdowns, budget and staff cuts, etc.). 

At qnotes, we're weathering the financial storms as best we can and we are moving into the future. In our Jan. 9-Jan. 22 print edition, we unveiled our new redesign, with a new layout and logo. A forward-looking change in our editorial direction and strategy accompanied our physical changes. 

Read more about them after the jump…

Among our changes is a redesigned and new layout for our print edition and online edition. We also have a new web address, goqnotes.com.

The most important changes, of course, lie in our editorial direction and strategy:

Editorial direction

With our change in aesthetics comes a change in our editorial direction. Our bi-weekly print issues will be more future-oriented and contain less reporting of events past, while goqnotes.com takes up a more robust daily presence with online only reporting of Carolinas, national and international events and news. The print editions will include in-depth features on news, arts, entertainment and politics of Carolinas and local interest. Some of our upcoming coverage includes a 2010 special series, “InFocus.” Throughout the year we’ll profile local LGBT leaders, organizations, businesses and issues of hyper-local importance in the Triad (Apr. 3), Charlotte (July 24), Columbia (Sept. 4) and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (Sept. 18). In our May 1 issue, our “InFocus” series will take an in-depth look at the largest and most influential LGBT non-profits in the Carolinas.

Online v. Print

In an effort to maintain our new, robust website and editorial direction, qnotes will be implementing a sort of “web first” model. Stories slated to appear in our print editions will be published as they are completed, or as a set of stories in the day or two after we dispatch our content to our printer. No more waiting the painfully slow and long five days between press time and street date.

From what we’ve been able to tell, our online readership and print edition readership don’t overlap all that much, so publishing print content online won’t hurt our print edition’s pick-up. Further, the early online publishing will keep our community’s news front-and-center. As you might already know, the world of news is 24/7/365 nowadays. We’ll be doing our part to keep up.

The feedback we've gotten so far has been positive, and we hope readers will continue to enjoy the content we provide in our bi-weekly print editions. We also hope folks find the daily, up-to-date and breaking news and event listings we post online both helpful and insightful.

We love feedback, too, and want to know what you think! Be sure to visit us at goqnotes.com, take a look around and vote in our poll. Add your comments or send them privately to editor@goqnotes.com.