Out Front (newspaper)
Out Front Magazine is an LGBTQ newspaper and daily online publication in the Denver metropolitan area, founded by Phil Price. Its first issue was dated on April 2, 1976, and it is the one of the oldest independent LGBTQ publications in the United States.
History
After the Stonewall riots on June 28, 1969, the homosexual community began resisting against the government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities. Out Front was founded seven years later, in 1976, by Phil Price, a student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, operating from his parents' basement.The first issue of the magazine was published on April 2, 1976.
Out Front provided coverage of the early spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Price himself died from AIDS in 1993 at the age of 39. He left Out Front to Greg Montoya, Jay Klein, and Jack Kelley. Kelley later died of natural causes.
Montoya and Klein owned and managed Out Front until early 2012, when Colorado resident Jerry Cunningham bought the publication. On October 30, 2020, Jerry Cunningham stepped back to focus on the non-profit activities of the Out Front Foundation, as Maggie Phillips and Addison Herron-Wheeler became majority owners and co-publishers of the magazine.
The paper changed its name from Out Front to Out Front Colorado in 1995, at the suggestion of former advertising director David Beach and former editor Madeline Ingraham. The name change provided a niche for local LGBT news. During Jerry Cunningham's ownership, the title of the publication was changed back to the original Out Front.
The publication has had a web presence since at least 2006.
Reception and controversy
The magazine is one of the oldest LGBTQ publications still in operation. It is sometimes referred to as "Denver's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender magazine", or "a directory and guide to the local gay scene".In 2002, the magazine refused to published an advert submitted by the National Lawyer Guild's LGBT committee, prompting accusations that the magazine had "sold out".
In 2014, the magazine's publisher Q Publishing Group sued billboard advertising company Outfront Media, which had changed its name from CBS Outdoor to Outfront Media in 2014. The two parties settled out of court in 2016.
In 2021, the magazine was added to the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection.