Who Needs Old Black Media?

Discussion in 'Group Discussions' started by Winston Smith, Jul 4, 2016.

  1. Winston Smith

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    There was an article in this weekend's New York Times about the hard times that many black-owned newspapers and radio stations are facing. Recently, Johnson Publishing's Ebony and Jet magazines, stalwarts in the general black community, were sold to a private investment group out of Texas (a largely black-owned group). Like "mainstream" traditional media, black newspapers and talk radio stations are seeing dwindling revenues and audiences. With the proliferation of diverse and genre-oriented websites, blogs, Twitter and Facebook feeds and podcasts, nothing's going to change:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/b...ies-struggle-to-adapt-to-a-digital-world.html

    It might seem wrong, but I don't lament the disappearance of any traditional media, mainstream or black-oriented. I realize the historic importance of the black traditional media during the more extreme decades of slavery, separate-but-equal segregation and Jim Crow. From the first major black newspaper, Freedom's Journal, to the recent radio/television empires of black owners like the late Percy Sutton (Malcolm X's attorney and NYC media entrepreneur) and Cathy Hughes and her Radio One and TV One empires, these outlets gave expression to black viewpoints that were ignored or distorted by the traditional Fourth Estate. But these media outlets themselves often ignored black voices that were outside the mainstream, be they left-radical, politically conservative, or, of course, gay.

    This is not a new phenomenon. Almost a hundred years ago, for example, when black literary giants Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston, Wallace Thurman, and other young Harlem Renaissance artists got together to publish FIRE!!, a literary journal to acknowledged unheard voices within the black community, including gay voices, FIRE!! was raked over the coals (pun intended) by mainstream black leadership and literati for highlighting "deviant" themes that "made black people look bad." FIRE!! never made it past one issue. The black press could be given a pass for not acknowledging people whose existence and behaviors was often punished by law in a more unenlightened age. To be fair, there were occasional bits and pieces of LGBT depicted in black media; Jet Magazine in the 1950s would occasionally acknowledge the ballroom and drag culture of major cities like New York with a column inch or two and a photo of these events. Such stories, however, were the rarity. With the rise of homophobic, hyper-masculine Black Power and Black Islamic/Afrocentric types in the Civil Rights era, the contributions of black gay voices and organizers were damned near extinguished from the official Black History record.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Which brings us to present day. WVON AM, the Chicago black talk radio station cited in the NYT article, to this day has never had or featured any substantial black gay/bi programming or on-air personalities, but will readily give airtime to homo-hating-hoteps like Louis Farrakhan and Umar Johnson. Of course, that's the right of WVON or any media outlet to reflect whatever they feel is their editorial viewpoint. But don't claim to speak for all black folk and demand patronage from all black people if you are not incorporating all black voices and viewpoints. As much as white gays excoriate the Reagan Administration for its silence in recognizing the AIDS pandemic as it arose in the 1980s, black mainstream media was largely just as silent. AIDS was never mentioned by mainstream black media in terms of its shadow over gay black men and women; it was to be stripped of "that gay agenda" and only framed in the dialectics of "black genocide" of families and communities; or the unfortunate deaths of straight men such as Eazy-E, Magic Johnson, Arthur Ashe and Max Robinson.

    Black gay voices no longer have to wait to be acknowledged by traditional black radio, TV, and newspapers. Anyone with the time and inclination, can create her or his own media outlet, so to speak, through free services like Blogger, WordPress, Typepad, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, etc. Even if a person doesn't want to be subjected to the editorial strictures of the Social Media giants, it costs only the price of a few drinks at Starbucks to maintain one's own domain name and web-hosting on an annual basis through services like GoDaddy, HostGator, Wix and many others. Everyone may not be a star, to paraphrase Sly Stone, but everyone has the potential to be one with little upfront cost. With the proliferation of cheap technology and tools, comes the proliferation of many voices. And while many of the older established outlets are starting to feature gay voices and stories, it might be too little, too late for them. Did it really take a sitting black president like Obama to make you acknowledge our presence? And what happens in six months when he leaves office, the old "bury that nasty gay agenda" program?

    So, I won't be shedding a tear for the old media outlets that have outlived their usefulness and refuse to acknowledge that we no longer live in an age where a handful of power-brokers control the dialogue.

    [​IMG]
    You were a viscous bastard...I'm glad you're dead!
     
    #1 Winston Smith, Jul 4, 2016
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2016
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  2. OckyDub

    OckyDub is a Verified MemberOckyDub I gave the Loc'ness monstah about $3.50
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    ...but white print media has been suffering too. Tired of you gays pushing your agendas and lifestyles. Who cares Black gays and lesbians have been vital to Black artistic, literary and the civil rights movements?
     
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  3. LeMignon

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    I think it can be left to this!
     
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