Black newspapers offer a needed voice

BLACK NEWSPAPERS OFFER A NEEDED VOICE
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Yolanda Young]
[Commentary] The assassination this summer of Chauncey Bailey, editor of the black-owned Oakland Post, was shocking. But his death and his fearless pursuits have shined some light on a little-recognized niche industry that is critical to the black community: the black newspaper. Publications such as the Post still report on this community — the good and the bad — with an intensity not matched by mainstream newspapers. When Bailey was killed, he was beating the pavement and working the phones investigating the dubious activities of a black Muslim bakery. But the years have not been kind to black newspapers: Dwindling audiences and revenue have steadily strangled the voices of many publications. Gone are the days chronicled by Charles A. Simmons' book The African American Press. Simmons estimated that there have been about 4,000 black newspapers. Today, the National Newspaper Publishing Association, a black trade organization, has only 200 member papers. Like other businesses, many black newspapers have been responsible for their own demise by covering too many cotillions, celebrity junkets and civil rights dinosaurs. Like the mainstream press, which is now being challenged by the Internet, black newspapers, too, must reinvent themselves and regain relevance in their community.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070921/opcom21.art.htm