It’s no secret that the media landscape has evolved so radically and at so rapid a pace that it scarcely resembles the marketplace I entered when I started Black Enterprise magazine more than 40 years ago. Today, driven by digital technology and other factors, the number of outlets to distribute news, information, and entertainment–ranging from satellite radio, newspapers, and magazines to television on-demand, blogs, and social media platforms–is quite literally mind-boggling. When I began my magazine publishing company, I was part of a media market comprised of a relatively few and all but finite number of media players serving many media consumers. Now, we have an ever-growing profusion of media producers–the many are now engaging the many.
On the one hand, this has created opportunities for more people of all backgrounds, including African Americans, to participate in the creation and curation of content. On the other, we are facing a serious problem: the prolific growth in the number of media portals and outlets has not led to a proportionate increase in such outlets that advocate on behalf of and tell the stories of black people. To put it bluntly, we as black people are losing our share of voice.
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This is true in nearly every area of media. There are fewer black films in Hollywood and fewer marketing dollars and outlets for their distribution, which means fewer opportunities for black actors, producers, writers, directors, and others.
Television shows with predominantly black casts, whether comedic or dramatic, are all but extinct–despite the existence of TV One and BET. Black-owned newspapers and radio stations struggle for profitability and against extinction. And during our most recent recession, African Americans were forced to consider that a number of their publications would no longer exist. Black magazine brands, including black enterprise, operate with a simple, unforgiving mandate: Adapt or die.Why should any of this matter to you? Because perhaps more than any other Americans, we as black people need our own voice, to tell our own stories, not just as acts of creative expression or entrepreneurial pursuits, but as indispensible means of achieving and defending our rights and freedoms. The
gains we’ve made and those yet to be made in areas such as voting rights, access to public education and accommodations, political power, economic resources, and equal protection under the law are all at risk if our ability to tell our stories, to speak for ourselves, is curbed. Simply put, it has never and will never be enough for us to be limited to providing the talent and serving as consumers of media, as is the case for much of today’s content featuring black people. We cannot effectively advocate on our own behalf without media outlets, distribution channels, and businesses that we own and control.(Continued on next page)
As black Americans, we must fight to protect and grow our share of voice, in the form of robust media ownership, even in a changing media world. We must challenge the companies that depend on our consumer spending to pay that loyalty forward by spending likewise with black-owned media. We must reward with our dollars, readership, viewership, and traffic, quality content for and about black people above content that panders and distorts us, recognizing that we will get more of whatever we watch and pay attention to. We must continue to challenge black-owned media to deliver excellence and to evolve in order to thrive, not just survive. Most of all, we must value black-owned media and not take it for granted. Black media still matters–perhaps now more than ever.