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Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Star’s troubles reduce community coverage; Indy’s other media fill void

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Welcome to all the members of Kappa Alpha Psi and their family and friends here in Indianapolis for their Centennial Celebration this week.

I hope our daily newspaper, The Indianapolis Star, writes about your historic convention. But I fear they may not because their clueless corporate owners struck again.

Gannett, the corporate parent of the Star and other newspaper and media entities, cut 700 employees last week; 62 here, including 26 journalists. The Star’s rapidly depleted newsroom now contains 136 journalists; down 53.1 percent from the 290 journalists there when Gannett bought the newspaper in 2000.

Indy’s four TV stations, combined, now have more journalists in their newsrooms than the Star.

The latest Star layoffs claimed African-American veteran journalist Kevin O’Neal. Regionally, Richard Prince of the Journal-isms blog reported Betty Baye, longtime African-American journalist at the Louisville Courier-Journal, lost her job.

Gannett also closed the Courier-Journal’s Indianapolis office, depriving Hoosiers living near Louisville the only part of Indiana without newspaper coverage of state government.

Blacks remain a small percentage of the Star’s decimated newsroom. Of 136 journalists, I believe just seven (5.1 percent) are African-American. Fishers and Hendricks County has more Black diversity than the Star’s newsroom.

Who’s left? Editors Mark Nichols, Leisa Richardson, Shelby Roby Terry; photographers Robert Sheer, Danese Kenyon; sportswriter Mike Wells; and columnist Erika Smith. No African-American reporters or editorial writers.

For a company that talks diversity, Gannett’s African-American diversity in a metro that’s 16.1 percent and city that’s 28.4 percent continues to be horrific.

Gannett’s cuts aren’t because of financial distress. In the first quarter of 2011, cash flow (profits) from newspapers was $156 million. For 2010, newspapers’ profits were $817.8 million. The Star’s profits are estimated between $15 million and $25 million.

Gannett’s cash flow pays millions in salaries and bonuses to top executives, while slashing their workforce nearly 3,000 since 2008.

Star Media Publisher Karen Crotchfelt told the Indianapolis Business Journal (but not Star readers) that the paper and its online products would emphasize “watchdog coverage,” “strong voices” telling “compelling, in-depth, engaging stories.” “We’re going to marry that great investigative storytelling with more utility coverage like lists of things to do,” she declared.

Sounds like what local TV news already does.

The “watchdog” reporting of TV journalists like Channel 59’s Russ McQuade, Channel 6’s triumvirate of Rafael Sanchez, Kara Kenney, Joanna Massey and Channel 8’s Karen Hensel and Deanna Dewberry and their colleagues at their stations run rings around the Star in “watchdog reporting” and the softer “utility coverage.”

Indy’s TV news departments have three times the African-American journalists and photojournalists actually on the streets compared with the Star. (Editors and producers don’t count because we never see them out).

That fact allows TV to report more stories about our African-American community far, far more than the weakened Star.

The Great Recession has severely hurt America’s media. America’s biggest newspapers and TV networks have had to shed jobs.

Indy’s TV stations have been hit, but not like the Star has.

The city’s weeklies, IBJ, NUVO, the Indiana Herald and your Indianapolis Recorder have been weathering the storm, because being smaller and locally owned we have the ability and desire to report and cover the community we love and serve.

Black media’s been especially hard hit in these tough economic times. Notice how thin Ebony, Jet and Essence Magazines have been the past couple of years? When the economy’s bad, Black media are especially hard hit.

Our president’s editorial last week about the refusal to advertise with your Recorder by an entity this newspaper supported points out the obstacles Black media endures every day.

Despite the fact that Indianapolis’ African-American community now approaches 300,000, the names of companies refusing to advertise with Black media would appall you.

As Shannon Williams said last week, “People seem to forget that we are a business (and that) we need money to survive.” Shannon said Black newspapers and media cover the subjects, interests and reflect the lifestyle of a community that many times is ignored by mainstream media.

The lack of ad dollars inhibits Black media from doing more of what our African-American community would like us to do.

But unlike Gannett, Black media won’t write off entire communities or dumb down our service to you.

What I’m hearing in the streets

To our Kappa visitors: Welcome to Indianapolis, where our mayor, in office for three years and six months, has consistently refused to meet with virtually the entire spectrum of mainstream African-American leadership. Plus given the fewest interviews to Black media than any mayor in modern Indianapolis history.

Mayor Greg Ballard was peeved that Black leaders he’s snubbed spoke out last week about his continuing refusal to meet with the community’s legitimate leaders.

Ballard’s reaction was to tell WXIN/Fox 59 “You can go look at the transcript. (It) is pretty clear. We didn’t ruffle any feathers. They’re making this up.”

He told WISH-TV/Channel 8, “It’s political. That’s all this is.”

As the one who conducted the original radio interview that has Black leaders steamed and the mayor defensive, let me restate that, Mayor, the facts are clear.

You had no idea who is president of this city’s NAACP.

You have never once met with NAACP leaders, or with elected Democratic Black leaders, or the pastors of Indy’s biggest Black churches.

Sir, your words and actions show contempt for a community that comprises two of every seven Indianapolis residents.

Sir, you don’t need to read the transcript (which your office prepared so I have no way of knowing if it’s a true reflection of the actual radio interview) to know that your actions are speaking far louder than your simple words.

Marines are fearless. So, sir why are you so afraid to meet with people whose views don’t agree with yours? That’s the question our community really wants the answers to.

Oh, if you noticed I only mentioned three of the city’s four TV news stations in this column, it’s because I’m livid that that station spent hundreds of thousands in ads during the last Nielsen ratings sweep, deliberately excluding Indy’s Black formatted and owned radio stations.

See ‘ya during the Kappa convention and here next week.

You can e-mail comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.

 

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