At the end of January, I organized and moderated a panel at Temple University’s School of Media and Communications called “Separate But Equal? The Role of the Black Media in the 21st Century.” The title of the panel was deliberately provocative, because I wanted people to consider whether having media outlets that cater to specific ethnic groups was regressive and racist or a progressive sign of the times. The four panelists, representing the worlds of television, radio, newspaper, and digital media, never truly answered that question, but they did offer plenty of evidence that today’s black press provides a valuable service to a community that continues to be underserved by the mainstream media.
As a journalist, as a black woman, and as a media observer, it occurs to me that some people might believe that the time has long since passed when a separate black media is necessary. We no longer live in a (legally) segregated society, so why would we need a segregated press? In my opinion, the answer is, we don’t. We don’t need a separate black media in the 21st century, but we deserve to have one. And therein lies the difference between past and present.
In 1827, when the first black-owned and operated newspaper was launched by a group of free black men in New York, it satisfied a very important need in the black community and in society at large. The mandate of Freedom’s Journal was to counterbalance the character assassinations against black people printed in the mainstream press and to serve as a public voice against slavery. As time went on, the black press continued to be both activist and informant for a community that was routinely ignored and maligned by the mainstream media.
Today, the role of the black press isn’t so easily defined, as the needs of the community have expanded and the mainstream media have become more inclusive. Still, I do believe there is room in the media landscape for any number of media enterprises catering to black people; if there can be magazines for craft beer brewers and urban chicken farmers, then there can be magazines for black people who live in Harlem or black women between the ages of 25-35 who enjoy fashion. And not for nothing, I pretty much feel the same way about other ethnic groups having their own media products as well. (Clearly, Condé Nast and Hearst must agree, as they both recently launched fashion magazines for Latinas.)
Not everyone shares my opinions, especially those responsible for keeping a black media enterprise alive in today’s difficult economy. The panel I hosted at Temple led to a radio program on the same topic on NPR affiliate WHYY’s Radio Times in early February. Sara Lomax-Reese, president and general manager of WURD Radio, Pennsylvania’s only African-American-owned talk radio station, and Irv Randolph, managing editor of the Philadelphia Tribune, the oldest, continuously running African-American newspaper in the United States, joined me on the show.
Lomax-Reese disagreed with my assessment that a separate black press is no longer a ‘necessity.’
“I think it is vital and critical to have a specific outlet for this population,” she said on air. “The mainstream media is still very separate and there are not a lot of opportunities [for black people] to speak and to be heard,” she said.
Randolph concurred. “The pathologies and the exceptions are covered well in the mainstream media, but everyday black people are still marginalized,” he said. “We still need [the black press] to show black people as normal.”
Lomax-Reese also pointed out that in order for the black media to truly compete with mainstream media outlets, ownership is key. “It takes money to have the ability to tell your own story,” she said. “And until we have more economic freedom, it’s going to be very hard to change the media landscape.”
Well-reported and insightful piece. We want and need Black media. As you indicate, mainstream media are covering more Black issues. However, our story is still being marginalized. It's important to have a place that tells all facets of the AA story, a place that celebrates us and that keeps our issues front and center. While out communities are in many ways doing better, many of us continue to wrestle with unequal and unfair treatment. You need only look to our newspapers, websites and magazines today to see what's going unreported or under-reported in the mainstream.
#1 Posted by Constance White, CJR on Tue 5 Mar 2013 at 04:42 PM
I think NOT having media geared to blacks or any other group outside Europeans is racist. For decades, we've been forced to view programs from their perspective only. There are billions of people on this planet, and most of them are people of color so why should one viewpoint stand out from everyone else's. When we own stuff, we call the shots. Until then, they will always see things from there perspective, and even if they feature shows that employ us, it's still based on what they want everyone to see.
If the media had been fair and featured ALL people of the land, then maybe there would be no need.
Actually, I wish we as black people would start building our own empires so we can speak our voice and not let anyone else tell us what we should see or how we should think. We need more OWN's (Oprah Winfrey Network). There are too many black millionaires, and we have too much spending power for us to have to beg for scraps. It's ridiculous. We need to go back to the days of old when we had visions (thinks Black Wall Street) and stop asking everyone else for scraps!
#2 Posted by Janissi, CJR on Tue 5 Mar 2013 at 07:01 PM
Black opinions, stories and history should always be heard, read and expressed by black people. There is a difference, style of writing or expressing Black stories, past or present, we experienced it, pain, laughter, good or bad. All of us, races, etnicities and cultures share common experiences, but the experience of our people, black people, can never be shared. That is the problem, they want us to forget, let them voice our pain, and change the sound, to be there sound. And slowly slowly our voices will become silent. Shared and equal will never be, check out how they teach our black history.
#3 Posted by Knowledge17, CJR on Tue 5 Mar 2013 at 07:13 PM
"We don’t need a separate black media in the 21st century, but we deserve to have one. And therein lies the difference between past and present."
We do need a black media and we will create it ourselves and support it ourselves. The word "deserve" indicates some one other than a bunch of black people will keep up black media. As if a black media outlet will be given to us to manage.
I encourage you to visit the newsroom of your local black newspaper so that you can see all of the activity. I will then ask you to visit your local mainstream newspaper (if allowed). The activity is the same.
If no one is buying it, then why sell it?
People white and black do not read the newspaper and forget it is even a form of media.
However, the only power the people will have is the power of the written word and the ability to read it. Where are we on that? Literacy rates are abysmal.
I will challenge you to start and maintain a black newspaper for one year. When you see what your sales staff does to get and keep ads, you will understand. The industry of publishing is based on ad revenue and readership. Reporters have to be able to earn a living. Having an engaged community helps a bunch too. Black media does not stop and start with television and radio but print. I wonder why Telemundo is so successful?
#4 Posted by Leslie, CJR on Wed 6 Mar 2013 at 12:49 AM
Black folk need media outlets that articulate their stories, their perspective and their context. Mainstream media, even when well meaning, tend to buy into American myths that are out of sync with Black reality.
Examining a historic Black personality's mainstream treatment illustrates what happens when the story is controlled by white people. What do you think of Marcus Garvey? I was taught that he was a radical, anti-American, and even a criminal. He advocated: Africa for Africans instead of Africa for European and American interest. He advocated economic self determination doing unheard of things in the first part of the 20th century like starting a Black owned steamship line. This bad-boy of Black history said in the early 20's when the memories of Rosewood, Greenwood, and East St. Louis race riots were still fresh if Blacks cannot go back to Africa, if when they build successful businesses here or integrate into the workplace here they spur riots, what does America want. Is the only choice the genocide that the prior generation practiced on the American Indian.
He doesn't seem like a bad-boy to me. He doesn't seem crazy to me. However, I came to appreciate him only after decades of being fed propaganda about him from mainstream information sources. That one example happens over and over again. We must control our own stories.
#5 Posted by Norman Dowe, CJR on Thu 7 Mar 2013 at 07:47 AM