Page 281 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

0 | M nor ty Med a Ownersh p

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Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003; Goldstein, Tom. Killing the Messenger:
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Kathleen, and Paul Waldman. The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories that
Shape the Political World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003; McChesney, Rob-
ert. The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twenty-First Century.
New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004; Phillips, Peter, and Project Censored. Censored
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Christopher A. Vaughan

Minority Media ownershiP

For many years, minority-owned media have provided audiences with con-
tent they could not find in the mainstream media. Now, as the buying power
of minorities grows, media giants are targeting minority audiences they long
ignored. Should government play an active role in helping minority-owned
media remain competitive?
In the United States, minorities owned mass media outlets as early as 1780.
Though now “minority” tends to be synonymous with people of color, minority-
owned media included non-English-speaking European ethnic groups for nearly
200 years. (The French language La Gazette Francaise was launched in 1780 in
Newport, Rhode Island.) Wherever immigrants, exiles, foreign businesspersons,
or colonizers gathered in large numbers, news publications emerged to serve the
new communities.
Now, however, minority-owned media typically refers to outlets owned by
and targeting African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Indians,
and Arab Americans. The owners are either immigrants or native born as are
their audiences. They trace their tradition back to the Spanish-language El
Misispi, launched in 1801; the African American Freedom’s Journal founded in
1827; the Cherokee language the Cherokee Phoenix, first published in 1828; and
the Chinese-language the Golden Hills News, established in 1854, to name a few.
In the twenty-first century, such media outlets include newspapers, magazines,
broadcasting outlets, and Web sites.

tiMeline
1801—Spanish-language El Misispi.
1827—African American Freedom’s Journal.
1828—Cherokee-language the Cherokee Phoenix.
1854—Chinese-language the Golden Hills News.
1949—WERD-AM in Atlanta, the first black-owned station, goes on the air.