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Black media should be disruptive to the powers at be anything less is just pandering to a system that was designed to oppress Black people

Black media has always played a vital part in the fight against social injustice, civil rights, and economic empowerment in America. Since the earliest known Black-owned newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, was founded in 1827, Black media has provided a public outlet for Black people all across the U.S to share their stories, opinion’s, report on news from a Black perceptive and advocate for Black people. Having a median able to have civil discourse about the injustices Black people have faced in America for over 300 years is vital to the future of Black America.

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For many decades, Black people’s stories, opinions, history, and marginalization were kept out of the mainstream press. Therefore, creating the need for Black newspapers, radio stations, and TV networks. However, today we can seemingly find “Black media” anywhere, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s Black-owned media. The absence of Black people in mainstream news outlets has made it necessary for Black-owned media to keep its doors open. According to the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey, journalists of color comprise only 16.55% of newsrooms’ staff in 2017.

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The need for a comprehensive Black media outlet is vital for the future of Black America. The present time we are currently living in will go down in history, but if we don’t have someone there telling our side of the story it will likely be misconstrued with tons of falsehoods. With the advent of social media allowing Black writers, intellectuals and activists the ability to communicate their message for much lower cost compared to mainstream media. Allowing access to audiences who in the past would have cost thousands of dollars to reach. However, there are still many limitations Black-owned media faces explained by Black Intellectual

There are major resistance levels when it concerns exposure for black media and black news. Traffic nowadays isn’t cheap and access to strong search engine data comes at a high price. A good SEO strategy means more exposure and rankings for keywords that you can compete for. More exposure means more organic backlinks that you don’t have to work for. More backlinks means even more exposure because Google now views your site as having more authority because your content is being linked to. So being able to target the right data and the right people is extremely important for black media. There’s not just the issue of online exposure, but what about on-the-ground reporters and citizen journalists? It costs money to fly people around the country, pay for room and board and other hidden costs involved in telling a thorough news story. One can see how the bill increases exponentially and I haven’t even touched on marketing costs. A major limitation of black media is the lack of financing and capital. The disruptive nature of black people telling black stories means we have to find ways to fund ourselves and each other. This is why it’s so easy for outsiders to come in and control the narrative by controlling the flow of capital. This puts a stranglehold on content creation because it becomes less about telling the unapologetic truth and more about making sure the money keeps flowing. There appears to be a ceiling – a ceiling that must be broken. A barrier that blocks most truly independent members of the decentralized black media.

Future of Black America in Five Years? Answering the question “what is the future of Black America” will be almost impossible if we do not have an outlet that reports on our plight with a nuanced perspective required when reporting on a people with a nuance past. The absence of quality journalism suffers in all areas of media from mainstream to independent. However, without a place where we can effectively tell our stories, history, opinions and be disruptive to the systems created to keep us as a collective at the bottom of the totem pole the future is quite uncertain. SEE ALSO: Was Integration the Worst Thing To Ever Happen to Black People?

In the past, we had newspapers such as The Chicago Defender, who demanded federal intervention from President Woodrow Wilson to stop lynchings and played a major role in the Great Migration by advocating for Black people to leave the South for a better future and better opportunities in the North. Donate to Keep The Black Detour Alive Now it seems that the role of Black media is forever changing with the lack of resources and obstacles within the media business overall. Black media has lost a lot of its disruptiveness and has now seemingly switched to covering exclusively Black excellence, entertainment, beauty, and popular culture. Therefore, I am truly excited about the work The Black Detour is doing to not only cover news, Black history but also discuss topics that not only challenge the powers at be but Black people as well. In the end, without a media that is advocating for the interest of Black people as a collective, we will not be able to see the societal change we are working for. Just as Malcolm X said “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” Donate to Keep The Black Detour Alive SEE ALSO: Opinion: Will Black Liberation Ever Happen? SEE ALSO: Being Black in a White America that wasn’t created for Black people