With a mission to help Black-owned newspapers to "survive and thrive," ten Black newspapers have joined forces to create Word in Black, a platform to “amplify the Black experience by reporting, collecting and sharing stories about real people in communities across the country,”
The initiative is part of the Fund for Black Journalism, founded last year by the Local Media Association (LMA), who initially received funding from the Walton Family Foundation to do stories about COVID-19 and education. The idea was to create a national site to house the ten newspapers' stories about the issues. That site became WordInBlack.com, which soft-launched in May and covers racial equity, K-12 education, police reform, healthcare disparities, social justice, politics, opinion, sports and LGBTQ issues and rights.
The ten participating newspapers include:
New York Amsterdam News Atlanta Voice Houston Defender Washington Informer Dallas Weekly Baltimore/Washington Afro Michigan Chronicle Seattle Medium Sacramento Observer Louis AmericanIn this 103rd episode of “E&P Reports,” Publisher Mike Blinder speaks with Nick Charles,
The Managing Director for Word in Black, Francis (Toni) Draper, CEO/Publisher The Baltimore/ Washington AFRO and Larry Lee, President, Publisher at The Sacramento Observer. They discuss the state of the Black-owned newspaper industry and what Word in Black is doing to support these publishers.
