"The Black Press" Needs to Be More Accessible To Us Online

The Black Informant

By Danielle C. Belton

The Black Informant recently published a post critical of the "Black Press" in the complaints of black owned and operated publications upset over issues of access surrounding both the president and things like the memorial service for Michael Jackson.

Many black media outlets, reporters and editors have been outspoken when they feel that they are being slighted, but have been extra vocal about perceived slights when they involve fellow African-Americans. Case in point -- the president.

After the first black president completed his first prime-time press conference, the black press was red hot.

“We were window dressing,” said Hazel Edney, a reporter with the National Newspaper Publishers Association, also known as the Black Press of America. “We were nothing more than window dressing.”

The Black Informant points out that this attitude permeates whether discussing problems with advertising revenue or competing with bloggers. But rather than complain that these issues are because of race, TBI argues this has much more to do with their low circulation numbers, an over-reliance on a dying medium and their own unwillingness to embrace technology.

The Black press has stubbornly been relying too much on print media in an age where publications are moving online for survival. I have repeatedly made pleas to the Black press to reconsider this antiquated way of doing business to no avail.

All of this has less to do with race and more to do with low readership in the general print media market. Why would Obama treat the Black press like a large US paper or television network?

But we at The Retort want to ask: Do older black publications deserve a pass simply based on skin tone alone? As TBI points out, these publications have lower circulation and aren't tech savvy. It's not to the advantage of many to work with them to get the word out if they can bend the ear of a much larger publications. Rather than caterwaul, shouldn't black newspapers be upgrading to compete in today's environment?

These newspapers still serve a need, but they could be far more influential online than clinging to their present, more expensive formats. Newspapers are needed, but so is a black online journalistic presence and if more black journalists are online with news sites and blogs that would increase the number of substantial, investigative pieces that deal directly with the black experience and other, under-reported minority issues. Rather than whine over access, shouldn't they be making themselves more accessible to us?

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