We’re Calling on Newsrooms and Media Organizations to Pledge to Care for Black Communities and Journalists
The cops killed Ma’Khia Bryant, Andrew Brown, Daunte Wright and George Floyd — but anti-Black media helped create the conditions for these murders.
Anti-Black racism has been part of our media system’s DNA since colonial times. Media organizations were complicit in the slave trade and profited off of chattel slavery; racist journalism has led to countless lynchings; Southern broadcast stations aired vociferous opposition to integration; and, in the 21st century, the media continue to prop up police and spread harmful narratives about Black people who have been murdered by cops.
We need newsrooms to do better. To stop parroting police narratives about Black people. And to trust and support Black journalists. That’s why we’re calling on all newsrooms and media organizations to sign a pledge to care for Black communities and journalists.
We need newsrooms to do this for the future of our communities and the future of journalism alike.
Here are the newsrooms and media organizations where leaders and team members have pledged to help dismantle anti-Black racism in the media and care for Black communities and journalists (we’ll keep updating this list as more media sign the pledge):
- 100 Days in Appalachia
- Access Humboldt
- Anti-Racism Daily
- Black By God THE WEST VIRGINIAN
- Black Oak Society
- Bloomfield Information Project
- Boulder Daily Camera
- Center for Public Integrity
- Chalkbeat
- cineSPEAK
- Clarisel Media
- Democracy in Color
- EducationNC
- Generocity
- Gettysburg Connection
- Green Philly
- Gyrlversion Media LLC
- Just Media
- Kensington Voice
- Madison365
- Mother Jones
- Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY
- Out North Radio
- PhiladelphiaNeighborhoods.com
- Press On
- Prism
- Puerto Rico Sun Communications
- Raleigh Convergence
- Resolve Philly
- Salutation*Miss
- Scalawag
- Technical.ly
- The Beacon
- The Chicago Reporter
- The GroundTruth Project
- The JOLT — The Journal of Olympia, Lacey & Tumwater
- The Mendocino Voice
- The Mitchell Republic
- The Objective
- Trenton Journal
- TucsonSentinel.com
- WFAE
- Working Films
- WREG
- WURD Radio
- WWJ Radio
- Yellow Springs News
- YES! Magazine
Thank you so much to these newsrooms and organizations for your commitment to consciously undo anti-Blackness in the media. Add your newsroom to this list by signing the pledge now.
The Media 2070 Team
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Media 2070 is a project of Free Press, working to radically transform who has the capital to tell their own stories by 2070–50 years from today. The Black caucus at Free Press created and shaped the Media 2070 project in conversation and partnership with our community.
Our mission is to make visible the ways that the media have taken part in and supported state violence and harm against Black people. This project highlights how the media establishment has reinforced white supremacy — and points to the repair and reconciliation necessary to build strong, free and democratic communities. Visit mediareparations.org to learn more.
