Noah Stephens captures the beauty of Detroit as a photographer and essayist. (Image: Stephens)

We have good news for you. You can have a cool career and make a good living. No need to choose between loving your job and paying your mortgage. The following profile, part of the BlackEnterprise.com Cool Jobs series, offers a peek into the nuts and bolts, perks and salaries behind enjoyable careers.

WHO: Noah Stephens

WHAT: Photographer, Founder, Essayist for ThePeopleofDetroit.com

ANNUAL SALARY: $45,000-$65,000 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

THE GIG: Stephens, who calls himself a “one-man media content provider,” spends a lot of his days finding and shooting subjects for The People of Detroit photo project. Typically, his subjects are people he runs into throughout his day in the city. Each photo is accompanied by a biographic essay. “When I select a subject for the project, I make sure that person tells you something about Detroit you would not otherwise know. How do they fit into Detroit and the lager social context of urban living?” Stephens says. “Media coverage I saw of Detroit didn’t reflect at all the city that I know. The whole purpose of TPOD is to provide an alternative narrative. Contrary to what you see in the media, there are actual people here and occupied buildings. People live here.” Stephens also does corporate and retail photography.

THE PERKS: Like a lot of entrepreneurs, what Stephens appreciates most about his career path is freedom. “I like being the author of my own destiny. I can communicate my ideas to the world without editing, completely unrestrained,” Stephens says. His subjects sometimes provide opportunities as well.  A couple months after he photographed David DiChiera, director of the Detroit Opera House and founder of the Michigan Opera Theatre, Stephens ended up with box seats to the opera, a first for him.

THE WORKDAY: Stephens usually works at least eight hours, during a day that could include anything from shooting, editing, or mingling with guests at an exhibition of his work. Last year, a creative director in China stumbled across Stephens’ work online and hired him to shoot a McDonald’s commercial in Shanghai. TPOD was recently awarded with a grant from the Knight Foundation so, Stephens expects to use the funds to further expand the reach of his creation.

THE ADVICE: Follow your dreams. “Do something you are actually passionate about and do it with authenticity,” Stephens says.

Barbara Kydd Graves (Image: Courtesy of The Graves Family)

Family matriarch and a guiding force of Black Enterprise, Barbara Kydd Graves succumbed early this morning at Howard University Hospital after a more than three-year battle with gall bladder cancer. She was 75.

The wife of Earl G. Graves Sr., the founder, chairman and publisher of Black Enterprise, she played a vital role in the growth and development of the publication and media company, and its mission of economic empowerment and wealth building for African Americans.

Since the launch of Black Enterprise Magazine in 1970, Barbara Graves, an alumna of Brooklyn College and a former elementary school teacher, held every major position, including editorial director, circulation director and chief financial officer, during the 40-plus-year history of this company. Along the way, she is credited with grooming and developing several generations of executive leadership, including sons Earl Jr., Johnny and Michael, all of whom have worked as executives at Black Enterprise. Graves also co-founded and guided the Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit, the premier networking event and conference for women executives of color.

“My mother was a steadfast and loving partner and counselor to my father; his quiet source of strength and inspiration,” says Earl Graves Jr., president and CEO of Black Enterprise. “She served as mentor and guide to several generations of employees, managers and professionals. Above all, she genuinely cared for every member of the Black Enterprise family, and held a special passion for children and young people in particular.”

Funeral arrangements have yet to be announced.

Click here for a high-resolution image of Barbara Graves.

Radio pioneer, Hal Jackson (Image: File)

According to reports, legendary radio industry entrepreneur and pioneer Hal Jackson has died. Reports indicate the cause of death as unknown, but cite “illness.” He was 96.

Jackson was a radio industry heavyweight, having began his broadcasting career as the first African American radio sports announcer. He was the voice behind early Howard University and local Negro league baseball games in Washington, D.C.

In 1939, he made another landmark move as the first African American host at WINX/Washington with his own nightly interview program, The Bronze Review. He would go on to host a talk show, jazz program and a blues program on WOOK-TV in Washington, D.C., as well.

In 1954, he became the first radio personality in New York to broadcast three daily shows on three different stations, with at least 4 million listeners tuned in nightly to hear his mix of music and interviews with top music icons of the time.

In 1971, Jackson teamed up with Percy Sutton, another radio industry pioneer, to co-found the Inner City Broadcasting Corp. (ICBC), which acquired WLIB, becoming the first African-American owned-and-operated station in New York. The next year, ICBC acquired WLIB-FM, changing its call letters to WBLS, a top radio market performer for decades.

ICBC, of which Jackson served as group chairman, would expand to markets including San Francisco, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Jackson, the first minority inducted into the National Association of Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame, was also a National Radio Hall of Famer, and he was named a “Giant in Broadcasting” by the Library of American Broadcasting.

Joel Randell, Research Editor, Maxim (Photo: Randall)

We have good news for you. You can have a cool career and make a good living. No need to choose between loving your job and paying your mortgage. The following profile, part of the BlackEnterprise.com Cool Jobs series, offers a peek into the nuts and bolts, perks and salaries behind enjoyable careers.

WHO: Joel Randell

WHAT: Research Editor at Maxim magazine

ANNUAL SALARY: $58,000-$62,000

THE GIG: A job at a popular print magazine is many a journalists’ dream, but add to that the beautiful women that regularly line the pages of Maxim magazine and you have something of an ideal situation. As the research editor, Randell makes sure that everything that’s printed is factually accurate and most importantly, not libelous.

THE PERKS: Besides a steady flow of models walking in and out of the office for casting calls, other perks include travel (Randell has gone to Las Vegas and Honduras so far this year) and the laid-back office atmosphere. “It’s a very modern workplace that’s not stuffy,: Randall says. “It’s like working in a graduate chapter fraternity house. We wear sneakers and jeans to work.”

THE WORKDAY: “Hulk Hogan stopped by the office one day. We made one of our interns arm wrestle him and Hulk nearly put him through the table!” Randall laughs.

THE ADVICE: For aspiring Maxim editors, Rutgers alum Randell advises young people to attend journalism school or at least major in English. Internships are also helpful, as  some Maxim interns have gone on to land editorial spots at the magazine, Randall says.

Check us out next Tuesday for another Cool Jobs feature, and visit our Jobs Board, sponsored by Monster, to find your next dream opportunity.

But this time was different — at least for me. I thought this one was a joke. Some hoax commercial created for a laugh or two.

Sadly, it isn’t.

This particular Burger King commercial features music sensation Mary J. Blige, answering a hungry, conservatively dressed customer’s question: What’s in those new chicken snack wraps?

In the commercial, the fast food joint suddenly becomes a club, where Blige sings about the ingredients in a catchy ditty reminiscent of a song she might include on an album, as diners, including the geeky customer who initially prompted the performance, dance along.

(Can’t picture it? I couldn’t either. See for yourself.)

My immediate reaction to this was laughter, then an undeniable side eye.

Mary, I just can’t. I’m usually the biggest chatterbox in the office, but at this point, I’m almost at a loss for words.

As with anyone who has a brand to build— and protect— I question the motive behind a move that is both comical, stereotypical and just plain wack.

This is the same Mary I grew up with, who cried with me after break ups in songs like I’m Going Down and Be Happy, and gave me empowerment through hits like No More Drama, Just Fine, and Family Affair. The same platinum-selling, street-glammed, Grammy award-winning Mary who always kept it real, kept it authentic and stayed true to her roots in her climb to success. She took the issues of urban women mainstream, breaking barriers in the music industry with her gritty voice and passion for strength in femininity. She’d escaped many stereotypes, coming from a broken, abusive home in the projects to the heights of million-dollar success in the entertainment industry. She’s even ventured into business with her own HSN fragrance and eyewear line, Melodies by MJB.

She now joins the Side-eye Roster of neck-rolling, Mammy-type choir sisters singing praises to the poultry gods; the white Australian who thought it cool to diffuse an “awkward situation” by giving a crowd of mostly black cricket fans a bucket of chicken; a dancing MC Hammer, prompted to bust a move after tasting popcorn chicken; and the lovely couple who sang their love for one another over a fresh carton of chicken nuggets.

SMH.

True, stereotypes do exist in the world, and those stereotypes can sometimes drive the business decisions of advertisers who surmise that including black people in a commercial for a product that— let’s just be real—many of us enjoy, is the smart business move.

But for Mary J. Blige, it’s just not a good look. After seeing that Burger King commercial, I feel like I just saw my best friend, a professional woman climbing the ranks of entrepreneurship and life coaching, booty shaking in the latest Waka Flaka video. (Not knocking video vixens, but again, we’re talking professional branding here.)

Maybe I’m being a little too sensitive, but at this point in her career, I think there are plenty of other products Mary could endorse that not only align with the brand we know and love, but help to enhance its reach and ensure its longevity with an audience that has been loyal to her from the beginning.

Gloria Browne-Marshall (Image: File)

Gloria Browne-Marshall has made the boss move of boss moves, recently becoming the first black woman to get credentials to cover the U.S. Supreme Court. What’s The 411 Networks, the company for which Browne-Marshall is a correspondent, is also the first black-owned company to receive such credentials.

Browne-Marshall is reporting on the oral arguments for cases Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum and Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority. Both cases focus on corporate immunity issues, with the question of whether corporations should be held liable for acts of torture committed under their watch.

“My mission is to report on the U.S. Supreme Court in a manner that is accessible to the general public and of assistance to scholars at large,” says Gloria Browne-Marshall, author and associate professor of constitutional law at John Jay College. “I applaud What’s The 411 Networks for its willingness to cover the actions of the U.S. Supreme Court, as not enough attention is paid to the third branch of government. The general population knows the least about the workings of the U.S. Supreme Court; yet its rulings become the law of the land.”

Ruth J. Morrison, founder of What’s the 411 Networks, says she’s “delighted to have created a media company that facilitated this momentous occasion.”

“Decisions from the United States Supreme Court affect the lives of all citizens, immigrants, and in these particular cases, people and corporations beyond our borders. And, truth be told, the U.S. Supreme Court is the most powerful branch of government because all too often, its rulings stand without Congressional intervention,” she added.

Hiram Eric Jackson

As Chief Executive Officer of Real Times Media, Inc., Hiram Eric Jackson oversees a multimedia company that encompasses African American-focused newspaper publishing, radio, television programming, niche marketing and special events. He was named to this position in December following the death of longtime Publisher, Sam Logan.

The parent company of such African American newspapers as the Michigan Chronicle, the Chicago Defender, the Tri-State Defender in Memphis and the New Pittsburgh Courier, Real Times Media is one of the platforms by which the African American experience is shared with the public. BLACK ENTERPRISE spoke with Jackson about African American media, its significance and the challenges of running a media company in the 21^st Century.

Your industry is changing—particularly in the way people consume media. How do you envision Real Times keeping up with the times?

Hiram Jackson: The one thing that you’re always searching for in the media business is a foundational brand, and you want to have a brand that speaks to either a specific community or a specific niche and it’s very clear what that brand represents. Our plan is to continue to be that trusted source of information, but to be real creative on how we get the information to our readership. That means continuing to put out a paper product [and] a print product, but it also means growing with the technology, the technology that the audience demands. Some people want to get their information on mobile devices, some people want to get it just through digital editions. People are not buying print like they used to, so you got to develop creative ways to monetize your product.

Then there’s the business side of things. You can’t sell the same way that you sold even a few years ago. What are some of the things that you’re doing to keep revenue up?

Jackson: We’ve noticed that corporations have really responded to what we call niche programing. We’ve been very aggressive at not only developing a new way to deliver the content, but also being more narrow in terms of the content that we’re delivering. We have taken our trusted brands, and we’ve tried to do what we’ve always done—that is, to be a leader in the African-American community and provide great information. And we’ve tried to segment that a little bit more, so we still have our regular publications, but we supplement those publications with what we call custom publishing.

For example, we have a product called Living Well that focuses on healthcare issues that impact African Americans.  We have a product called Driven highlighting African American achievement in the auto industry. It gives the automotive industry an opportunity to connect their executives, the successes, and the challenges of their executives with the everyday Joe and highlight some of the achievements that they’ve had internally with their minority executives or minority employees. We have another product called Achieve, which is a product that’s designed to help African-American parents who have kids in K-12 make better decisions on what schools to choose. We’ve also launched a special events division. So you really have to be real creative with your nontraditional revenue strategy, but at the core is the quality and the reputation of the brand.

Is it still a challenge to convince advertisers that they actually need to reach the black audience through black media?

Jackson: I think that some advertisers don’t fully appreciate the African-American audience. There are endless statistics that show the significance of the audience, but for the most part I believe that the major advertisers feel that they can capture the African American audience by the mainstream media. We are huge consumers of media, whether it be digital media, television, radio. Our research shows that 40% of our readers do not read the mainstream newspapers, and they’re touched emotionally in a way that is different than they’re touched through mainstream media. We have an emotional relationship with our readers.  We have a longstanding relationship with our readers.  We have an intimate relationship with our readers, and the research just shows that relationship does not exist in mainstream media.

Circulation for print products has declined over the years, across the board. Do you have a plan to bring those numbers up at your firm or is the rationale that circulation will continue to decline so we’ll focus on live events or digital platforms?

Jackson: What we have found is that if you find a creative way to make the product available, people will buy it, and more importantly, there are some creative things that you can do with your corporate partners to make the product free to folks. The challenge is  if you’re trying to be a reputable product and get your audits. What we’ve done is we’ve implemented easier ways for people to put their hands on the product—door-to-door delivery, subscriptions with the price of admission at our special events.  We’ve done very well with the digital editions where you can receive [circulation] audit credit. It boils down to the quality of the product.  If people want it, they’ll buy it, and I think that where you’ve seen significant decreases of circulation has been the dailies.

You just can’t break news anymore.

Jackson: By the time you’re having your cup of coffee in the morning you’ve seen that story through 24-hour cable, through network television, on the Internet, so yeah, you can’t break news. Again, it boils back to having a niche audience and giving them the stories from a perspective that they can appreciate. So, we have not given up on circulation. What we’ve done is we’ve tried to be real creative on how to get the paper in folk’s hands and partner with our corporate partners to see how we, you know, how to pay for that.

Where do you see the company actually heading?  Things seem in a state of flux right now, and there’s a lot of media companies small and large trying to figure things out.

Jackson: I’m concerned, you know, about this whole space because we live in an age of quick stories, 24-hour cycles “ need it now,” fast information, and the stuff that we see now is information where [journalists] don’t validate the source of the information, [they] receive information that may not be from folks who have the best integrity. And once it’s on the web, it’s out there whether it is factual or not.

Everybody is struggling with how to monetize the digital platforms. The revenue that companies are getting from the digital platforms are really a fraction of what they’re getting from print.  So, I think our challenge is no different than any other of the media company’s challenge in terms of how to continue to provide a great product over multiple platforms without eroding your revenue pace. Our plan is to continue to provide niche products that are very meaningful to people, and as the technology develops, try to get to a space where people are willing to pay for content. At the same time advertisers are going to have to value those digital platforms a little more and be more willing to pay for the digital readers.

Gone But Not Forgotten: Felicia Yvette Traylor-Bass lost her life on 9/11 (Image: Andrew Bass)

I lost my wife and the mother of my first born on that sunny day of September 11, 2001. Her name is Felicia Yvette Traylor-Bass, and I was her husband.

Such a beautiful start to the day ended with me falling into the darkest period of my life. Watching that huge gaping black hole in the side of the North Tower, I instinctively knew we would never see Felicia again.

With both towers collapsing, the realization of my instinct became official for everyone else. The following few months showed how great humanity can be with unified cooperation, consideration and empathy that not only helped my then two-year-old son, Sebastian, and myself but also thousands of other family members. My heart swelled with pride and hope. Unfortunately, it was too short-lived.

We are days away from the tenth anniversary of the attacks of September 11^th and the bombardment of specials and shows revisiting the day’s events and its aftermath have begun. Over the past ten years, I’ve watched, read and listened to numerous tales recounted by survivors, family members, politicians and the good old media about this horrific day. If I had never heard about September 11^th and relied only on these accounts, I’d believe that the only folks who died that day were firefighters and wealthy financial traders who were all white men and “good Catholics.” From nearly all the brochures, websites and other promotional material from various organizations dedicated to September 11^th including the National September 11th Memorial & Museum, that same imagery is reinforced with the association that the people who died in this tragedy happened only to be white, male and Catholic.

Felicia with son, Sebastian (Image: Courtesy of Andrew Bass)

I noticed this happening about six months after the attacks, and while it irked me, I focused on making sure my son’s life went about as normal as possible. His mother would have wanted me to make sure of that, so that’s what I did. Each anniversary I would watch the ceremonies, read the articles, and still see the same thing. On the fifth anniversary, I actually went down to the ceremony on the site of the World Trade Center and the Family Tribute Center. Honestly, I can’t say it was a pleasant experience. It was very painful and emotional, but I also felt like I was an outsider to an event that had happened to me as well. It felt like this hadn’t happened to anyone like my wife or anyone else for that matter just because she wasn’t what was being constantly driven over and over again by all the media.

Five years later, it has only gotten worse. I’ve never seen a lead, first-person account of any victim of the September 11^th attacks who was African-American, Latino, Asian, female, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, non-financial trader, non-firefighter or non-police. While I respect and appreciate what the firefighters and police officers did that day, they are very well aware of the risks of their jobs—which they willfully do every day. To focus primarily on their accounts is not only insulting to the thousands of civilians who lost their lives that day, but it also creates this ridiculous value system that places their lives higher than our lost loved ones. For all of us, our loved ones are priceless.

Remembrances for September 11^th should be fair, balanced and account for all the different splices of life that occurred on that day. It is not about securing politicians’ legacies or some developer’s egotistical drive for wealth and real estate. Nor is it about perpetuating some American patriotic mythos. Remembrances should not be these fiefdoms where a small group of family members claim to speak for us all, yet reach out to none. Remembrances should not be about organizations created to build a memorial that secretly select family members to meet with the President of the United States, who also happens to be the first black president, and is greeted by this sea of white faces.

Ten years later, what had started out as a great show of American unity has ultimately succumbed to the dark side of our nation. The ugly faces of class, religious intolerance and race are defining how September 11^th is remembered. Ten years later I am left feeling disgusted, offended and dismissed. The hardest part is when my son looks at the specials on television now or reads the news accounts and asks if anyone else like his mom died that day. I tell him yes, there were, but how do I tell him that they don’t fit the image the outlets wanted to project? At least his mom was a good Catholic.

Author Andrew Bass lives in New York with his son, his daughter and his wife, Karen.