When Don Hauck and Howard Rouse founded Update in the late ’70s, San Diego’s gay and lesbian community was in dire need of something to connect them beyond just word-of-mouth gossip at the bars – they needed a resource to turn to for the facts.

The lead story in Update’s first issue (which was assembled on a kitchen table and published in March 1979), “Police harassment at the Barbary Coast,” reported on two men who had been arrested and jailed on lewd conduct charges for dancing together at the club, and recounted the men’s allegations of police harassment.

To say things were different back then doesn’t even begin to cut it. Being gay or lesbian was essentially a lewd conduct charge in itself. The Stonewall Rebellion had taken place just under a decade prior, The Center (known first as the Center for Social Services and then as the Gay Center) was only six years old, no-touch rules in gay bars were just beginning to loosen, and a mysterious “flu” was starting to circulate among gay men in town.

That “flu” turned out to be HIV and AIDS, and gay and lesbian San Diegans, like their brothers and sisters across the country, watched helplessly as their friends died. There were sometimes more than 10 funerals a week, and the rest of the nation, then under the Reagan administration, ignored the crisis.

In memoriam of those lost, and in acknowledgement of the hideous lack of governmental support to combat the disease, Update each week ran every obituary submitted to them of San Diegans who died of AIDS. Glance back through those issues at the Lambda Archives, and you’ll often see three to four pages of obituaries. You’ll also find comprehensive reporting on everything from anti-gay harassment claims, military discharges and the HIV/AIDS epidemic to Imperial Court fund-raisers, developments involving the Gay Center and profiles on local gay and lesbian activists. From news articles and editorials to entertainment pieces and social columns, Update truly was the voice of San Diego’s GLBT community.

Though there were local gay publications that came before Update – one of them being the San Diego Gayzette, for which our state Senator Christine Kehoe used to work in the mid ’80s – all of them folded over time, usually due to finances. And just last week, Update announced that it, too, will fold due to financial constraints.

Sadly, Update is only the latest GLBT publication to fold. At least three others around the country have already folded since the beginning of the year, and many more were lost last year. Other publications are attempting to reinvent themselves through mergers and management changes to respond to our nation’s rapidly changing business environment.

It’s obvious when reading any paper, from national heavyweights like The New York Times to local coupon-clippers like Community Magazine, that advertising revenue is a publication’s bread and butter. On average, 65 percent of any given paper consists of advertising. In our troubled economy, advertisers are switching tactics to get more bang for their buck, and smaller publications are taking the brunt of the sales loss. Why advertise in, say, three local publications and pay three different ad rates when you can hit the same audience in a national publication, or advertise through a marketing firm that bundles ads to run in several regional publications and pay only one rate? Add the rise of the Internet and the entirely new advertising horizon it offers, and the one-two punch could knock the wind out of any publication – or business, for that matter. The vicious cycle of paring down staff, content and resources to accommodate dwindling revenue makes it nearly impossible to compete.

Hauck, who was a founding member of the Greater San Diego Business Association and who helped start the National Gay & Lesbian Press Association, died in June 1992. In his last will and testament (which he called his “final editorial”), he asked his staff, his friends and his community to, “Carry the torch – I’ll be watching!” And for 14 more years, Update did just that.

In a statement announcing its closure, Update publisher Tom Ellerbrock said, “We were fortunate to cover a pivotal time in our struggle for civil rights, a heroic response to a devastating plague, a maturation of our community that seemed incredibly distant nearly three decades ago. … So we will step aside with a sincere thank you to all who helped make it possible.”

In fact, it is all of us that need to thank you, Update – both your founders who helped unify the San Diego GLBT community and all who carried the torch on from there, giving our community a voice for 27 years.