March 24, 2013

Unarmed Wendell Allen was shot in the back, killed by a New Orleans Police officer.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Wendell Allen’s life came to an abrupt end on March 7 last year as he died shirtless, standing on a staircase, at his Gentilly home in New Orleans, La.

Unarmed, the 20-year-old basketball star was shot in his back by New Orleans Police Department officer Josh Colclough. For six weeks the Allen family believed their child was shot in his chest until the embalmer revealed that Allen was actually shot in his back.

Yet, newspaper readers in New Orleans noticed two starkly different news priorities on the stands and in the streets.  Louisiana Weekly, a Black-owned paper, had the Wendell Allen shooting on the front cover. Right beside it, was the Times-Picayune, a White daily newspaper that had no mention of the Allen shooting. Instead, the cover featured a Black male being charged with multiple counts of murder.

In interviews over the past year, seasoned journalists say the differences in coverage between White and Black-owned media - whether print or broadcast - continue to be clear.

News outlets like CNN, MSNBC, BBC and Fox News, all cover certain types of stories from a certain perspective. “Black press is the voice of the Black community,” said Ingrid Sturgis, journalism professor of new media and multimedia expert at Howard University. “Our story doesn’t always get heard in mainstream media.”

Award-winning Black press reporter Hazel Trice Edney agrees. “Both of these stories are important,” said Edney, editor/publisher of the Trice Edney News Wire. “It is typical across America that when Black newspapers come out they have distinctly different stories than White newspapers.”

On August 13, 1977 an article headlined A little About A lot—The Need for the Black Press, was featured in the Baltimore Afro-American that detailed former dean of the School of Communications, Dr. Lionel C. Barrow’s four reasons for Black press. According to Barrow the Black press functioned as a watch dog, answered attacks published in the White press, presented a view point different even from that of liberal whites and, the black press also served as the carrier and preserver of Black culture.

Marrow did not deny that there were still improvements that needed to be made, improvements on production, in investigating and in reporting, writing and editing. But considering other issues Black media has faced, its survival is incredible.

“The strength of the Black press would be that it always relied on context and providing perspective,” said George Curry, award-winning journalist who is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service.

Curry reflected on when he interviewed the family of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen shot dead by Neighborhood Watch captain George Zimmerman on Feb. 28, 2012, a highly publicized court case now set for court June 10.

“No one was doing a story on how the news broke to Martin’s father,” Curry said.

While reporters of White publications were sticking to the basics and investigating the case, Curry went for an intimate and personal story.

“Urgency is not such a big problem,” Curry said. “It’s worth the wait because we don’t come out with the same frequency as other newspapers.”

Today the Black press faces issues within its own agencies. Perhaps the biggest is technological advancement. According to the State of the News Media in 2007, an annual report by the Pew Research Center on American journalism, “the black press has been slow to technology, and its audience appears to be aging.”

Pew’s State of the Media 2013 reports a new Black press hurdle – how to attract the attention of new, younger readers.

“One of the broader challenges for African-American news media in general, and most notably the newspaper sector, is striking a balance between appealing to a younger generation with a contemporary product and fulfilling a mission to honor a history that includes the defining civil rights struggle of a half-century ago,” the report states.

‘“History has got to be a definitive weave in what we do,”’ said John J. (Jake) Oliver Jr., the publisher and chief executive of the Afro-American newspapers in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., was quoted in the Pew Study. ‘“We’ve got to redefine our personality from just a straight delivery of community news to helping people really educate themselves.”’

The Black press has an extensive history dating back to March 16, 1827. That is when the first Black newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, was founded in New York City by John B. Russwurm, a journalist, and Samuel Cornish, a minister. It's first editorial stated, "We wish to plead our own cause. For too long have others spoken for us."

Because of its longevity, now 186 years old, some find it hard to fathom why the Black press isn’t the biggest and most advanced among all media in the U.S. But, there are many reasons its numeric growth has been stunted.

“Technological advancement is an issue and it remains an issue,” Edney said. “But we’re working on that. There are many black newspapers that are online and there are many that are not.”

According to Sturgis, it has a lot to do with resources. “A lack of resources, reporters, funding to do in depth pieces, and training in new media hampers the ability to cover what needs to be covered as well as the ability to grow,” Sturgis said.

Financial struggles due to racial discrimination in advertising have also been a complaint by NNPA, a federation of more than 200 Black-owned newspapers, founded in 1940. The organization has launched many strategic campaigns calling on fair share in advertising from major corporations.

But the Black press isn’t losing its older audience. Curry admits that the older audience is a lot more appreciative of news and Edney agrees that there are faithful readers of Black newspapers that have strong contingencies within the community. The biggest concern Edney has with the black press is getting online and becoming more technology savvy.

“Because of the urgency of our issues, we must use every opportunity available to get our message out,” Edney said.

According to the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, 83 percent of U.S. adults own a cell phone. Of these adults, 35 percent of them own a smart phone and one quarter of them use their phone as their main source of internet access. This is a trend that is especially found among 18 to 29-year-old adults who identify themselves as Black.

Pew Internet research shows that “when someone has a mobile device connected to the internet, they are more likely to share, to forward, to create and to consume online information, from text to photos to videos.”

Curry said, “You’re not going to reach the younger audience through print…You have to reach them through a mobile platform.”

The Black press, aiming to play a vital role in the lives of African-Americans, has been serving the community to bring perspective and context for over 100 years. Black press continues to do its part in telling the story and keeping its readers loyal. “You have to give them something they can’t get anywhere else,” Curry said.

Two months into Wendell Allen’s death, the Allen family remained outraged at the slowness of the investigation.

“They feel that because their son is African-American, the police department is taking its time investigating the incident,” said the Rev. Raymond Brown, president and founder of National Action Now during a press conference at the Allen home.

According to Louisiana Weekly, the shooting took place inside the Allen’s home during an execution of a search warrant for marijuana. Since the shooting, Allen has not been linked to the marijuana allegedly sold in or near the home.

Eventually, Colclough was indicted by a state grand jury on one account of man slaughter regarding Allen’s death.

A year after the shooting Colclough awaits trial and no date has yet been set. Meanwhile, the family, early this month, filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the City of New Orleans, accusing the New Orleans Police department of several civil rights violations.

Though the Times-Picayune has done extensive reporting on the case, the Louisiana Weekly – in keeping with the Black Press mission – has not only lead the way, but agitated for justice, Edney says.

“The White press [still] criminalizes and stereotypes us,” Edney said. “We need to bring a sense of fairness and balance to the media consciousness.”