April 02, 2015

 

By Freddie Allen 

Senior Washington Correspondent 

 

 

Jordan Shanks, a sophomore English major at Howard University admitted that before Black Press Week, he didn’t know much about the Black Press or the Richmond Free Press, the Black newspaper published in the Virginia city where he grew up.

 

“The state of the Black Press is impacted by the generation gap between the older folks and the younger folks,” said Shanks.

 

Members of the Black community, young and old, believe that bridging that gap will be critical to the future of the Black Press.

 

Despite myriad challenges facing the Black Press, Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., president and CEO of the National Newspapers Publishers Association (NNPA), a federation of more that 200-Black owned newspapers, said that 188-year legacy of African American newspapers remains strategically important, insightful, indigenous and impactful.

 

“The challenge for us today, however, is to have a greater sense of economic accountability and economic equity and parity with those companies that are the profit beneficiaries of the trillion dollar consumer spending of [Black] people in the United States and throughout the world,” said Chavis.

 

“What is the state of the Black Press in America and in the world today? It is financial assessment time,” said Chavis. “The Black Press needs to be financially more sustainable and profitable.”

 

Chavis and others also echoed Shanks’ concerns about a generational and cultural gap preventing youth from engaging with the Black Press.

 

E.R. Shipp, an associate professor and journalist-in-residence at Morgan State University in Baltimore, said that shortly after she began teaching a course on Black media at the school, she showed her students the documentary “The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords,” then she tasked them to start tracking Black newspapers online.

 

“Oh, my God, my students didn’t find too much to be impressed with,” said Shipp. “After seeing all of this glorious past, they saw a very disappointing present,” said Shipp. “Too many people involved in the Black Press today think that they are living that glorious past and they are not being real about what’s happening now.”

 

Many students have never heard of the Black Press, said Shipp.

 

“The challenge is not just to celebrate what has gone before, to celebrate that legacy, but to actually do something to make sure that the Black Press is known by the younger generation, embraced by the next generation, and eventually taken over by the next generation,” said Shipp. “But right now, I say the state of the Black Press is shaky as far as reaching beyond those who have grown up in the Black Press.”

 

Jake Oliver former chairman of the NNPA and publisher of The Afro-American newspapers, said that there’s a demographic challenge that the Black Press needs to address.

 

“We seemed to get distracted by our quest to go after the dollars and we forget that we also have to go after readers,” said Oliver. He said that the playing field for newspapers has never been more level and that taking advantage of social media will be the key to capturing market share in the new digital news delivery space.

 

Oliver added that his staff at the Afro has grappled with social media for eight years, but saw a breakthrough about two years ago when Facebook started to allow users to “like” articles from their cell phones.

 

The number of “likes” on the Afro’s Facebook page jumped from 15,000 to 100,000 in a month, said Oliver. Now, the Afro’s Faeebook page is closing in on 430,000 “likes” Oliver said, adding that the Afro also has 11,000 Facebook followers in India.

 

“I’m excited about what we’re about to do,” said Oliver. “Within the next 3-5 years, if not sooner some startling innovations, not only technologically, but also as a result of some of the programs that the NNPA is about to promote and create will form a foundation so that we can reconnect all segments of the community in a way that has never been done before.”

 

Chavis recommended developing new revenue streams, including a leased photographic images service, similar to Getty Images,  mounting regional polling services to take advantage of the upcoming 2016 election cycle, and launching a national public awareness campaign on criminal justice reform.

 

Shanks suggested that Black newspaper publishers show a greater willingness to engage in what’s going on with the younger generation through social media, especially through student government associations at Black colleges.

 

Shanks said that a negative experience with a reporter in the mainstream media influenced him to change his major from communications to English, but that he’s reconsidering a career in journalism after Black Press Week.

 

“[Black Press Week] taught me that you can be authentic in journalism and still tell the story,” said Shanks. “It’s about finding the audience that audience that wants to hear it and the publication that wants to put it out.”

 

The upcoming 75th NNPA annual convention in Detroit, Mich., will also feature “the first day totally dedicated to uplifting, mentoring, and encouraging our youth to prepare for leadership, entrepreneurship” in the Black Press, said Chavis.

 

He added, “We have come a mighty long way from Freedom’s Journal [the nation’s first Black newspaper] to today. We have made progress. But we still have a long journey ahead.”

March 26, 2015

 

By ELIZABETH HSING-HUEI CHOU 

City News Service 

 

Economists sparred this week over the effects of a proposal to raise the minimum wage to as high as $15.25 per hour in Los Angeles during a city council committee hearing attended by hundreds of business people and activists. The city council is considering raising the minimum wage from $9 an hour to $13.25 an hour by 2017, to $15.25 an hour by 2019, and higher in subsequent years based on the Consumer Price Index. The economists giving presentations to the Economic Development Committee today authored competing reports on the effects of the proposed wage hike, including a city-commissioned study that concludes the benefits of the wage increase would outweigh its drawbacks, and two reports funded by labor and business groups that reflect opposite viewpoints.

 

The economists quibbled over whether the proposed wage increase would result in Los Angeles businesses moving to cities where the minimum wage is lower, possible exemptions for small businesses or nonprofit organizations, whether businesses could withstand the increased costs and whether the workers would see their standard of living go up or instead, end up seeing their jobs disappear. Many of the economists acknowledged that the wage increase would put some stress on certain industries, such as the apparel and restaurant industries, but they differed on whether businesses in those industries would be able to bounce back. Michael Reich, an economics professor who conducted the city-funded UC Berkeley study, called the minimum wage plan ``a very bold proposal ... one of the boldest yet, and of course it requires a lot of careful study to see what its effect will actually be.''

 

Los Angeles' wage hike plan is among a ``new wave of minimum wage policies put in place in states and quite a few cities at levels we have not seen before,'' Reich said. Reich's study concluded the wage hike would have more benefits than negative impacts. He dismissed the view that the wage increase would likely drive businesses to neighboring cities and said there are limited real estate vacancies in neighboring cities, and contended that Los Angeles' wage increase could actually prompt businesses in other cities to raise their wages in order to compete for qualified workers.

 

Christopher Thornberg of Beacon Economics, which conducted a study for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, said while there is a general consensus that ``L.A. has a big working poor problem,'' the minimum wage plan ``is going to have a very bad return for this city.''

 

 ``The benefits are just too diffuse, they're offset by job losses and ultimately the costs to the economy is far too high,'' Thornberg said.

 

Thornberg said the businesses will be driven to other cities or be forced to replace workers with machines or other cost-cutting measures. Daniel Flaming, the economist at the Economic Roundtable – which produced a report for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor -- said they concluded that ``low-wage workers in Los Angeles need higher wages for the city to be sustainable ... for low wage workers to be able to work here to provide the services that we want.''

 

They also found that ``higher wages have the potential to be an engine of economic growth, potentially having a transformational effect on low-income neighborhoods,'' and businesses would be ``challenged to adapt their business models to pay higher wages,'' Flaming said.

 

Councilman Curren Price, the committee's chair, said toward the close of the hearing that ``we always knew these reports would tell us the good, the bad and the ugly about the proposed minimum wage hike and I think that's what we heard today.''

 

Price said the hearing is ``only the start of our work, as we move our debate to the community with a series of hearings in all corners of the city.'' Price helped spearhead the minimum wage increase proposal, which was initially announced by Mayor Eric Garcetti, and called it ``one of the most critical civil rights issue of our time.'' Price said while there will be financial reasons for backing the plan, the city also has a ``pressing moral responsibility'' to adopt a wage hike.

 

Councilman Paul Krekorian expressed skepticism about the wage hike plan, saying that people living in his district's North Hollywood neighborhood often work in Burbank, a neighboring city, and would be left out of the benefits from the city's wage increase. Other council members agreed that the wage hike increase is necessary, but appeared to want to consider possible exemptions for smaller businesses or nonprofit organizations. Councilman Gil Cedillo said there are large employers in his district that pay workers higher than the minimum wage, but there are also ``an abundance ... of small businesses, immigrants, entrepreneurs, family-owned businesses that are very small.''

 

``I mean, these are micro enterprises and I do have a concern about the impact that it would have on them,'' he said.

 

``I think we have to go forward and think about all the elements. There is no doubt that we have a lot to do,'' Cedillo said. ``We have to make sure whatever rate we decide on, and whatever pace we decide on, this simply has to be done.''

 

While the debate has been set up as a battle between labor groups and businesses, the business owners who spoke at the hearing had a variety of views on the proposal. Restaurant owner George Abou-Daoud, who submitted a petition that he said was signed by more than 150 other restaurants, said the wage increase would be ``catastrophic'' to their businesses. However, Kevin Litwin, owner of parking lot company Joe's Auto Park, said the number of Angelenos living in poverty is ``eye-opening'' and said ``it's time for Los Angeles to set the example'' by ``saying no more to unfair wages.''

 

More members of the public will have the opportunity to join the debate over the proposal at three hearings held on:

 

• Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Watts Labor Community Action Committee headquarters, 10950 S. Central Ave.

 

• March 31 at 6 p.m. Van Nuys City Hall, 6262 Van Nuys Blvd.

 

• April 2 at 6 p.m. at the Museum of Tolerance, 9786 W. Pico Blvd.

 

According to UC Berkeley's mostly positive findings, the wage hike would prompt businesses to pass costs onto customers, driving down consumer demand, but this would be offset by $2.381 billion added to workers’ wages by 2019, which is expected to have a multiplier effects on spending. The UC Berkeley report also points out that 80 percent the workers affected would be people of color, and the wage increase would affect more than half of Latino workers in the city.

 

The 600,000 workers who would see their wages go up by 2019 make up about 40 percent of the Los Angeles workforce, the report said. The Beacon Economics report -- funded by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce -- contends the wage hike would kill an anticipated 73,000 to 140,000 new jobs, while a labor-funded report argues that it would result in $5.9 billion in added income for about 700,000 workers in Los Angeles and create more than 46,000 additional jobs.

March 19, 2015

 

By James Clingman 

NNPA Columnist

 

 

 

Writing has been a catharsis for me since my “angry days” in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. I used to write “Last Poets” kind of stuff and just put it away afterwards. Writing was a release to lower the pressure in my mind about the state of our people. It’s much the same for me today, after nearly 23 years of writing Blackonomics. The larger context of my writing this column has evolved into a desire to inform, to educate, and to move our people to progressive economic action. I share ways and means through which we can achieve true freedom—economic freedom—in this nation.

 

I don’t write to impress, I write to express. That is to say, I do not intentionally use $50 words; rather, I make every effort to assure that my readers understand and will be moved to act on the information I share. It seems my frustration from the 1960’s and 1970’s has reared its ugly head in the 21st century.

 

What bothers me most is our view of politics and those who constantly force-feed us their political rhetoric and their “politics-only” solutions to our problems. Instead of espousing economic solutions, they keep telling the young people to vote and “maach.” Marching is fine but without an end game, or if it’s done just for grandstanding and setting up VIP sections by the Marcher-in-Chief, Al Sharpton, what do we get from it except worn out shoes? We must go from politics to “Power-tics.”

 

Economic and political leverage cause benefits to accrue to those who know how to play the game. Black folks, so emotionally invested in politics-only strategies, will never get what we say we want and need from politicians. They are too busy meeting the demands of the corporate moguls and their lobbyists, who know all too well how to play “Power-tics.”

 

The frustration and anger I feel when I see the continuous daily parade of Facebook videos showing someone getting beat down, tasered, kicked, or killed by police officers is overwhelming. The difference lies in whether we will continue to accept symbolism over substance when it comes to politics, and whether we are willing to use our economic leverage to solve our problems.

 

We are indeed a conflicted people right now. It seems we are willing to walk up to the line but not cross over into the arena where the real battle must take place. It seems we are willing to settle for so little in response to so much tragedy and injustice.

 

Sharpton vowed to come back to the nation’s capital “over and over again” until legislative action is taken so there is “justice for all.” Will someone tell me when “legislative action” will occur, what it will look like, and how it will occur? Without practical economic leverage, Black folks will never have the political redress for which we march. Justice for all? Is that a dog-whistle to let certain folks know that Sharpton is not really serious about justice for Black people? These nebulous and tepid gestures in an effort to demonstrate the seriousness of our situation are insulting and patronizing.

 

Our young people are the ones fighting for justice; many of our older folks are just talking about it. That’s why many young people turned their backs on Eric Holder, stormed the stage during the March for Justice to speak, despite being told that they had no “V.I.P” passes, and walked away when Al Sharpton started to speak.

 

Do our young people know something we don’t know? Are they willing to fight where we are not? I believe they do and I believe they are. They know it will take “Power-tics,” not politics, to make the changes they want to see.

 

The folks I am working with have an end game, a plan, and a solution. Contact me; I’ll share it with you.

 

Jim Clingman, founder of the Greater Cincinnati African American Chamber of Commerce, is the nation’s most prolific writer on economic empowerment for Black people. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati and can be reached through his Web site, blackonomics.com.