Chris Cash, the founder and Publisher Emeritus of Georgia Voice, has been named to the LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame.
The LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame was launched by the National LGBTQ Journalists Association to honor outstanding LGBTQ journalists who have advanced fair and accurate coverage of LGBTQ communities and issues. The LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame has honored 51 individuals to date.
Cash was the original founder, publisher, and executive editor of the Southern Voice until she sold the paper in 1997, nine years after its foundation in 1988.
Within a few years, SoVo became an integral part of the LGBTQ community and a nationally recognized and award-winning publication. It grew from a small 16-page publication to the largest LGBTQ media company in the Southeast, distributing more than 25,000 copies per week in Atlanta and throughout the region.
Cash attributes the success of Southern Voice to its practice of offering news and imagery of both women and men; limiting sexual and alcohol advertising; and “being a paper you could read on MARTA and take home to Mom.”
The paper lasted until 2009, when Window Media – the company that purchased Southern Voice in 1997 – closed its doors. It was then that Cash worked alongside then Southern Voice editor Laura Douglas-Brown and former Southern Voice sales rep (and current Georgia Voice publisher and managing partner) Tim Boyd to create Georgia Voice in 2010.
During her career, she served as editor for the Kennesaw State Sentinel and worked as a volunteer for LGBTQ advocacy groups like the Atlanta Committee, for whom she edited a monthly newsletter.
Cash will be inducted at the Association of LGBTQ Journalists 2022 National Convention in Chicago this weekend, from September 8 through 11, alongside documentary filmmaker Debra Chasnoff and former Boston Globe editor Michelle Johnson.