Black Media

Abolition of slavery and women’s voting rights led to the rise of early

alternative newspapers

First Black newspaper: Freedom’s Journal was founded in New York City in 1827

Founders: Rev. Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm, freedmen

Frederick Douglass was a journalist

He founded The North Star in 1847, the most influential Af-Am pre-Civil War publication

After the Civil war, there was an enormous burst of energy, a desire to communicate, a desire to connect,

with black people establishing newspapers in any town, even tiny ones.” – Phyl Garland

Between 1827-1861, there were more than 2 dozen black newspapers established. The Reconstruction was a “golden age” for African American journalists

Ida B. Wells, co-owner & editor of Memphis Free Speech and Headlight, late 19th

century

Between 1876 and 1919, at least 3,000 black men were murdered by white lynch mobs.

Plessy vs Ferguson, 1896

Impact on the black press?

Chicago Defender, founded in 1905 as “the world’s greatest weekly”

Circulation of 100,000 with 500,000 readers

Red Summer, 1919

In heyday, black press = 2,700 newspapers, magazines and

quarterly journals

What has happened to black newspapers? Now fewer than 200

Crisis Magazine, 1910

Founded by W.E.B. Du Bois, as

mouthpiece of the NAACP

• It will record important happenings and movements in the world which bear on the great problem of inter-racial relations, and especially those which affect the Negro-American.

• Secondly, it will be a review of opinion and literature, recording briefly books, articles, and important expressions of opinion in the white and colored press on the race problem.

• Thirdly, it will publish a few short articles.

• Finally, its editorial page will stand for the rights of men, irrespective of color or race, for the highest ideals of American democracy, and for reasonable but earnest and persistent attempts to gain these rights and realize these ideals.

• Circulation increased from 1,000 copies to 100,000 by 1918

Jessie Redmon Fauset, literary editor of The Crisis in the 1920s

Literary magazine of

Harlem Renaissance

Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen

Social issues and crusades

The Negro Digest, founded in 1942 by

John Johnson

Ebony, founded in 1945

Ebony Mission StatementEbony celebrated African

American life and culture by depicting the achievements of black Americans. It honored black identity by portraying black life, refuting stereotypes, and inspiring readers to overcome racial and other barriers to success.

Jet Magazine,

1951

Jet also offered serious coverage of early Civil Rights movement

Essence Magazine,

1970grew from

50,000 to 1.6 million in its

heyday

Trends in black publishingWhen mainstream publishing sneezes, black newspapers and magazine catch pneumonia

Jet, R.I.P. June 2014

Circulation, dropping

Not the only game in town

Oprah!

Economics of Magazines

• Cover Price: $3.99 an issue

• Subscription: $12.99 a year discounted

• Full page 4-color ad: about $121,000 for one month

• essence.com: free

Analog Dollars vs Digital Dimes

The death of print…..

The Fight for Eyeballs

Challenge of Black Media• How do you critically cover issues in the

community? (Bill Cosby! Clarence Thomas?)

• White ownership, Essence, BET, Black voices,

• Politics vs economics (Nelly, Essence Music festival?)

• Multi-culturalism & interracial marriage

• The career as black journalist – where to put your talent

Community and Ethnic Media

37 % of New York’s population = foreign born. The combined circulation of these 18 dailies exceeds 500,000. (By contrast, the New York Daily News delivers about 270,000 papers to the city’s five boroughs.)

Read the history of The Paper