Weekly gets two reactions to front-page story on gay wedding: negative locally, positive globally

The thrice-weekly Laurel Leader-Call in southeast Mississippi lost some local support but gained a lot around the country after it published a front page story about the mock marriage of two women, one with advanced brain cancer, owner Jim Cegielski tells news-media blog Romenesko.com.

"We didn’t know the reaction was going to be as vicious and hateful and as widespread as it was," Cegielski said. "In the first week, before the backlash to the backlash, the calls were 100 percent negative," and 40 subscribers canceled and two advertisers pulled out.

Then Ashton Pittman, a student at the University of Southern Mississippi in nearby Hattiesburg, wrote about the episode on his Deep South Progressive blog and it was tweeted by Rachel Maddow of MSNBC. Cegielski said the paper has added 100 subscribers, all outside Mississippi, and a dog groomer as an advertiser. The comments in the paper's public forum reflect similar support.

Cegielski, who bought the 7,500-circulation paper's name and subscriber list after running it out of business last year with a weekly he started, told blogger Jim Romenesko that he would write about the outside support in tomorrow's paper, so this item will be updated.