Now, simply because it has been throughout all consequential intervals all through this nation’s historical past, it’s important that Black journalists dedicated to excavating intersectional truths and holding them as much as the sunshine are supported and platformed. However that isn’t what is going on in mainstream media, nor has it ever totally been. As an alternative, our voices are suppressed, distorted, and criminalized, whereas Synthetic Intelligence dominates the media panorama and misinformation and disinformation proceed to be unleashed.
Let there be no mistake: America of America, as a white settler colonial challenge rooted in land theft, slavery, genocide, and rape, is unraveling on the seams. And people seams, sewn with injustice and interwoven with hate, are being stretched in methods which might be unsustainable. Some individuals might discover it comforting in charge all of this on the authoritarian, fascist regime at present occupying the White Home, in addition to a rising variety of cities throughout the nation occupied by Donald Trump’s militarized forces; however we didn’t arrive right here by happenstance, nor as the results of one presidential election. Black individuals and different focused communities usually are not shocked by these travesties whilst we brace towards the brazenness of the malevolent political actors imposing them. Why?
As a result of this nation’s previous is its prologue.
How, then, does one curate an unflinching reality a few nation that has lied concerning the depth and high quality of its character since its inception? As I’ve mentioned beforehand, you start by rooting the work within the custom of the Black journalists who’ve come earlier than, similar to Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who taught us by her work on the Memphis Free Speech and past, to be each righteous and rigorous. You consider the Freedom’s Journal and the Girl’s Period, of the Chicago Defender and the New York Amsterdam Information, of the Los Angeles Sentinel and Negro World.
You consider all of the Black journalists who’ve risked their lives to inform the reality.
“Having misplaced my paper, had a worth placed on my life, and been made an exile from residence for hinting on the reality, I felt I owed it to myself and to my race to inform the entire reality.” —
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
In service to that mission, I’ve lengthy nurtured a imaginative and prescient of paving the way in which for younger, Black journalists—the truth-tellers and cultural curators of our time—simply as others have paved the way in which for me.
At this time, I’m proud to announce the launch of the Bison ONE Newsroom, NewsOne’s unique partnership with scholar journalists underneath the tutelage of famend, award-winning journalist, writer, and professor Dr. Stacey Patton at Howard College’s Cathy Hughes College of Communications, named for the Founder & Chairperson of City One, NewsOne’s guardian firm and the most important Black-owned media firm in the US.
Increasing on our iONE Digital NewsOne x Bison 2024 Election protection, the Bison ONE Newsroom is a groundbreaking, first-of-its-kind partnership between a nationwide media company and an HBCU journalism program—a partnership that honors the facility of HBCUs as incubators of cultural and political transformation.
Mixing in-depth journalism, real-time protection, and heartfelt storytelling, this multi-media expertise will function a pioneering blueprint for the way narratives that try to obscure the humanity of Black individuals will be disrupted when Black establishments stand collectively and create one thing revolutionary, one thing lasting, one thing that’s ours.
Be a part of us in celebrating and supporting these scholar leaders as they be part of the sacred custom of Black journalism. Take in their phrases and movies; respect their views; hearken to their hearts. Although instances are perilous, and the street forward treacherous, we’ve at all times had one another. We might face hate, however we nonetheless love. We might encounter lies, however our truths are unbreakable. These in energy might try to intimidate us into silence, however they will by no means imprison our ideas, nor incarcerate our voices—voices that echo generations of freedom fighters who’ve come earlier than and breathe life into all those that will come after.
As a result of that is what legacy seems to be like—what resistance, revolution, and audacious, Black brilliance seems to be like. As our collective futures unfold, NewsOne is honored to cross the mic to rising journalists who will form the methods wherein historical past will keep in mind this pressing second. We’re the authors of our personal tales.
Let or not it’s written.
In solidarity,
Kirsten West Savali, Vice President of Content material, iONE Digital
SEE ALSO:
Cathy Hughes Talks Howard U, Election
NewsOne Companions With Howard U For Election Day
