Black-owned media helped shape the identity of CBC on-air personality Nana aba Duncan as a Black woman; it planted the early seeds for her foray into journalism.

“What would my life be like, if not for Share?” said Duncan, the host of Fresh Air on CBC Radio One.

“What would my life be like, if not for the Ghanaian News?”

As many of her peers of colour do, Duncan credits the city’s Black-owned media brands, for serving as a launch pad for budding journalists struggling to get hired by mainstream titles, and shaping the way Black stories are told, and also for serving as a bridge between the diaspora and its diverse countries of origin.

“I remember writing for the Ghanaian News,” said Duncan, who was born in Ghana.

“Seeing a Black face on the cover of Share is part of my experience. We need that.”

Duncan said Black-owned media is a key source of representation “to an under-represented group.

“It means that there is another voice.”

While brands such as Share, a newspaper of record serving the African and Caribbean community, have been around for decades, several newer entrants, such as ByBlacks.com and G 98.7 FM have recently taken up the mantle of telling the stories they say are typically ignored by mainstream media.

Strengthening Black representation in Canadian media was one of the motivations behind the creation of Roger and Camille Dundas’ ByBlacks.com.

After they launched the site about seven years ago, the couple quickly discovered that their readership is hungry for the stories they provide.

“The Black Canadian community is desperate for positive representations, positive reflections of themselves,” said Camille Dundas, the editor-in-chief.

“Mainstream media’s relationship with the Black community has, for the most part, been predatory, in the sense that they are very interested in the stories of our pain, of our suffering,” she said.

“They’re not so interested in the stories of our success.”

Having a hand in shaping how Black stories are told is critical, she said.

ByBlacks.com covers a little bit of everything relating to Black people in Canada, from business profiles to music reviews to opinion pieces.

One of ByBlacks.com’s most popular series was #BlackHistory365; throughout 2017, it shared a story daily about influential Black Canadians — people such as Carrie Best, who founded the first Black-owned newspaper in Nova Scotia in 1946; and Mathieu da Costa, who was the first-recorded free Black person in Canada and worked as a Mi’kmaq translator for European settlers. “I learned so much (more) in that one year than I ever did in school here in (any) one year, about Black Canadian history,” said Camille.

“Black people in Canada have for so long had to look to the U.S. for any type of positive reflection of (themselves),” she added.

“We wanted to create a space where we could do that for Black Canadians.”

Roger Dundas said they optimize their website diligently. They’re “ranked number one in Canada for Black online magazines,” based on Alexa.com rankings, he added. This makes them a suitable choice for ad clients seeking to reach Black audiences, such as TD Bank, the City of Toronto and Soulpepper Theatre. It’s been enough for ByBlacks.com to pay its writers and “keep the machine going.”

The Dundas’s goals for the near future are to grow their younger audience, cover more Black Canadians outside of Ontario and move their presence offline through events such as Essence Fest, a music festival and conference organized by the American magazine of the same name.

Roger Dundas wants to see Black Canadian titles to become more established, visible household names.

Sharine Taylor, 26, is betting on a boost in visibility for her brand, Bashy, a magazine by and for the Jamaican diaspora.

It’s focused on Afro-Jamaican content primarily.

Just more than 200,000 people in Toronto are of Jamaican descent, according to the last census.

But migration from a number of countries has a large influence on the Black Toronto experience.

“I find that people are often, whether subconsciously or not, trying to recreate feelings of home,” she said.

As a freelance writer, Taylor got tired of having to justify why her story pitches, which championed dancehall artists and Jamaican culture, would be well-received by the readership of the publications.

So she created her own title in 2016.

Bashy, gleaming and glossy, is still “very much a baby,” she said. A few issues have been published in print and in a digital format, and it has a website.

Taylor is able to offer writers honorariums and hopes to increase these.

She wants to offer Jamaican people around the world a positive representation of themselves, as told by them. “I no longer want a seat at the table; I want to dictate who’s in the room.

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“I want to create the space that I aspire to be a part of,” she said.

Veteran newsprint journalist, Ron Fanfair, who has written for Share News since 1986, is optimistic about the future of titles such as ByBlacks.com and Bashy.

He said Black-owned and managed print entities, such as Share News and Contrast newspaper, were beacons of hope for budding journalists in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, as they saw them as stepping stones to mainstream titles.

“They gave me an opportunity and without that opportunity, who knows what would’ve happened,” he said.

Donovan Vincent, now a Toronto Star reporter, wrote for Share, and Royson James, an eminent Black columnist for the Star, wrote for Contrast, which was conceived in the 1960s, as the “eyes, ears and voice of Canada’s Black Community.”

James said Contrast “was like a community centre. That’s where we all came together.”

Jojo Chinto, who went on to work for CityTV, was an editor for Contrast.

Media catering to a Black audience is key to shaping the landscape of how Black stories are told, he said.

“Share was the one that stood out for me, because they were telling the stories you weren’t seeing in the mainstream media.”

Fanfair said Afro-centric newspapers have consistently profiled both social issues and pioneering Black people in an uplifiting way.

“Stories about our young people doing well are the ones I enjoy doing, and you won’t see those stories in the mainstream media,” he said.

Share, as most newspapers have, has been hit by a decline in advertising dollars. The once weekly paper is now only published twice per month.

Fanfair is concerned about the dearth of new-media Black-owned brands, even with new online outlets, such as ByBlacks.com, emerging.

“I hope we can see more publications come to the service of telling those positive stories,” he said.

Delford Blythe, part-owner of G98.7 FM, a radio station geared toward the Afro-Canadian diaspora, said titles have to be prepared to evolve..

“There’s lots of room, so we should come up with interesting channels (podcasts), for people to listen to,” he said. “We have to anticipate change and be ready to deal with it.”

The times have certainly changed from when Denham Jolly fought to get the first Black-owned station, Flow 93.5 FM, on the air, in 2001.

Black music, culture and stories are now more widely accepted and appeal more broadly, Blythe said.

“From a Black-owned perspective, I don’t see a threat; I see an opportunity, because more diversity in Toronto makes our message acceptable,” he said.

“The younger generation is into different experiences and different cultures.”

Blythe said in the ’90s, Black media brands weren’t seen as viable places for advertisers to promote their goods and services.

Now major brands endorse diversity.

“We don’t have the same type of barrier …,” he said. “It’s now about performing, so they can see the value, so we can bring them in.”

He recalled the concept of a dedicated Black-owned radio station was still a lofty goal in the ’90s, and Afro-Canadian newsprint served as the key source of content for the diaspora.

“We got our news from Share, and, earlier on, Contrast,” he said. “We used to look for them dropping on the newsstand.”