Today, Double X editors Hanna Rosin and Emily Bazelon announced that the newish ladymag is about to return to its roots as a ladyblog. Or, as Gawker put it, "Six months after the Slate Group launched Double X as 'a new kind of women's online magazine,' it's being transformed into a section of Slate.com, a very old kind of men's online magazine." (Which led to our favorite comments: "Slate is a men's magazine?" Followed by, "And Salon is for women. Angry, angry, angry women.")
Rosin and Bazelon assure readers, "For many of you, this won't much change your experience of reading us. We will have many of the same bloggers and writers, and Hanna and Emily will continue to run the project. The decision is being made for business reasons rather than as an editorial judgment." No layoffs have been confirmed yet, but a business decision that results in only "many of the same bloggers and writers" working for them does suggest that there will be some sad changes as they transition to a "more intimate version of the community we have built." Such is the nature of journalism these days, unfortunately; in even sadder news, Window Media, the country's largest publisher of LGBT newspapers, announced today that it's closing six papers.
On the plus side, innovation and new models are also the nature of journalism today. Editors at the Washington Blade, one of the closing Window Media papers, are already regrouping to plan a new publication -- and Double X, of course, will continue on as a part of Slate. We wish everyone there the very best, and we look forward to reading what comes next. There are worse gigs than being part of a women's issues blog on a larger news and culture site, we can tell you that much.
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