Washington DC Blade

The Washington Blade was founded in 1969 as a black and white, one-sheet community newsletter distributed in D.C.-area bars. In October 2009, the Blade celebrated its 40th anniversary as an award-winning news source with a large following in print and online. Readers locally and around the world have come to rely on the Blade’s unmatched coverage of LGBT news, earning the paper the moniker “the newspaper of record for the LGBT community.”

In November 2009, the Blade’s former parent company filed for bankruptcy and the paper was shuttered on Nov. 16. But the community immediately stepped in — advertisers, writers, professionals from all backgrounds — and thanks to an outpouring of local support, the staff carried on the Blade’s important work. On Nov. 20, the former Blade staff debuted a new publication, DC Agenda, which was published weekly until April 23, 2010 by Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia, a new locally owned business created by publisher Lynne Brown, editor Kevin Naff, sales executive Brian Pitts and other former Blade staff members.