All Articles Tagged "ethnic newspapers"
African-American Newspaper a Family Affair
(Florida Courier) — In late 2004, the Cherry family was in a state of crisis. Charles W. Cherry, Sr., the family patriarch, had died. Not only was he a civil rights activist, father and grandfather, he was also the key man who operated the two newspapers, the Daytona Times and the Florida Courier, that were affiliated with the family’s media company. And there was no clear plan as to how to continue the operation. ”Glenn was knee-deep in operating nine radio stations at the time,” current Florida Courier Publisher Charles W. Cherry II explained, “and I had a foot in both operations. After Daddy died, we knew that we had to keep both newspapers going.
“At the time of his death, the Daytona Times had been published for 1,369 consecutive weeks. The Florida Courier had been going for 637 consecutive weeks. To miss a weekly issue, even when the key person running the business has died, and even if you had never missed an issue before, would be the kiss of death for a Black weekly newspaper. There are no weeks off in this business.” Cherry II recalls the family meetings that occurred after Cherry, Sr.’s death and burial. He says the same thing happens in every family-owned business after the death of a key individual. ”Everybody looks around and says, ‘What do we do now?’ There are options. You can let the business die with the person. You can operate it at a marginal level and take whatever profits you make. You can sell it. You can get a partner to run it, and hope for the best. You can walk away.
The AFRO-American Newspapers Partners with Google
(Business Wire)– The AFRO-American Newspapers, one of the nation’s oldest news organizations dedicated to covering the African American community, has created a comprehensive collection of over a million articles that captures the African American experience in business, civil rights, education, health, law, and sports beginning in the late 19th century. Google partnered with the AFRO and helped to digitize the newspaper’s historic archives and make them searchable on-line and available to anyone, anywhere in the world. ”It took us over 10 years to develop and fine tune the concept to make the AFRO’s Archive site a reality and Google played a key role,” said publisher Jake Oliver. “The site includes original page views of complete editions of the newspaper dating back to the early 1900s and in-depth coverage of important stories such as the events of the arrests and national spectacle surrounding Scottsboro Boys trials, the entertainment coverage of Black movies stars such as Dorothy Dandridge, the Army’s use of the Tuskegee Airmen (Fighting 99th) in World War II, coverage of the Little Rock 9 Integration in 1954 and many other events that helped to shape the black community.”
Black Publisher Files Complaint Over School District’s Call for Ad Boycott
(New American Media) — James Tucker, publisher of the African American Voice, the city’s only Black newspaper, has asked the federal government to stop a local school district from advocating an advertising boycott of his publication. Tucker recently filed a racial discrimination complaint with the U.S. Justice Department against Harrison School District 2 alleging that Superintendent Mike Miles wrote a letter asking businesses not to advertise in the African American Voice. “If your organization advertises in his paper, you are either wittingly or inadvertently sending a message of support for the paper’s extreme views and incivility,” Miles wrote in a letter on Harrison School District stationary dated Nov. 2. The letter appeared on the publicly-financed school district website.
