Knitting Circle Capital Gay Section
The Knitting Circle: Periodicals
Capital GayWeekly London newspaper.First published 1981,last issue 31st. June, 1995. Jointly established by Graham McKerrow and Michael Mason.
It was priced at 20p when first published but became free six months later, and went on to be Britain's longest-running free gay newspaper. It was initially distributed only in London but was later also distributed in Brighton. At the end it had a circulation of about 20000 in London and Brighton.
"e;Capital Gay, committed to intelligent reporting and activism, went under in 1995 because it could not compete for revenue against the trivia and sleaze-obsessed free sheets that rudely elbowed it aside."e;
Diesel Balaam (who co-wrote the satirical column 'Emerald City News' forCapital Gay), inTWO CHEERS FOR THE "e;ANTI-GAY GAY MOVEMENT"e;,Gay and Lesbian Humanist, Vol. 16, No. 2, Winter 1996/7, pages 9-13.
Queer ICONSCapital GayinThe Pink Paper, 12th. July, 1996, issue 438, page 43. "e;Gay jounalism at its sharpest: sacred cows ritually slaughtered; 'difficult issues' given their first airing; noted for debunking windbaggery and putting those who mattered on the spot."e; "e;Cap Gay did its straight-down-the-line news bit. But there was editorialising - how else were you going to get your readers out marching? Cap Gay perfected the ideal mix of precision news-reporting, campaigning zeal and irreverent comment to engage readers."e; "e;Credited by the Oxford English Dictionary as the first publication in the world to use the term HIV. In an attack that was condoned by Tory MP Jill Knight at the time, the paper was firebombed at the height of the Section 28 controversy."e;
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administrator@knittingcircle.org.ukLast altered 10th. September, 1998