New media landscape unnerves black press

BALTIMORE -- Levi Henry Jr. founded the Fort Lauderdale Westside Gazette in 1971 to tell the story of South Florida's black community, passing the business down to his son, Bobby, when he retired.

The Henrys say their newspaper and others in the black press have become a pillar of the African-American community, right behind the family and the church. But now they fear that pillar could collapse in the wake of a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission to relax media ownership restrictions.

''Level playing field?'' Bobby Henry said. ''It's wiped out. It's gone.''

The Henrys are not alone in their concerns. Recently in Baltimore at the annual convention of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, about 400 black publishers, editors, writers, and sales representatives fretted about consolidation of media power, economic hard times, and other issues threatening the minority press.

The 62-year-old association, also known as the Black Press of America, represents more than 200 black community newspapers that combined have about 18 million readers weekly.

Between sessions at the Wyndham Hotel, Janis Ware, a second-generation publisher of the Atlanta Voice, spoke for many:

''It is more imperative today than ever before that the black press continue to exist. Otherwise the information is going to be disseminated in one view and one view only.''

She and others said that, in tough economic times, giving the most powerful media companies license to become even more powerful could spell disaster.

The FCC voted, 3-2, last month to allow individual companies to own more television and radio stations and newspapers than before.

''There's a threat by the diverse media on newspapers in general, but it becomes frightening when you talk about the black press,'' said Robert Bogle, president and chief executive of the Philadelphia Tribune, which, at 119, is the oldest black newspaper in the country.

Mainstream newspapers have made significant efforts in recent years to diversify their ranks and the subjects of news stories. But they will never take the place of black newspapers, Bogle said. He said, for example, that black newspapers are providing the only real challenge to the assault on affirmative action.

Other pressing issues facing the black community, according to their newspaper executives, include the achievement gap, the disproportionate rate of incarceration, and racial profiling.

They said readers are also looking for positive news about themselves, a break from the headlines in the mainstream press about black drug addicts and criminals.

''The need for the black press is as great today as it was yesterday,'' Bogle said. ''Our nation is still divided by race. No one can tell our story better than we can. You have to live it. You have to be a part of it to understand it.''

George Curry worked for the mainstream press, for publications including Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, for more than two decades before becoming editor in chief of Black Press USA. Covering the war in Iraq in recent months, he looked for stories about African-Americans in key military roles -- stories, he said, that readers probably would not find elsewhere.

''My whole approach to questions was different,'' he said. ''Your role is to give voice to the voiceless.''

The biggest difference between black newspapers and mainstream newspapers is the trust factor, Curry said. When reading black newspapers, black readers ''know there are no hidden agendas, and the people have their best interests at hand. They're more likely to believe it.''

Brian Townsend, publisher of the Precinct Reporter Group, in San Bernardino, Calif., which includes three newspapers with a combined circulation of 75,000, said the main issue for African-American papers is staying relevant to their readers.

''Our circulation is not dropping like other publications,'' he said. ''We're serving our communities well, and that's why they continue to support us.''

Nevertheless, the troubled advertising market has hit minority newspapers even harder than other forms of media, Townsend said.

''Even though we've established our legitimacy, we're still fighting for advertising dollars,'' he said. ''Since we're a specialty group, those dollars go first. With the consolidation of newspapers and television stations, we're such a small market for them, we may not even be on the radar screen. We're going to have to fight that.''



© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.