By Dr. John E. Warren
Publisher
San Diego Voice & Viewpoint
As the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you, the reader, to our “Local Newsrooms” now in our 198 years of service.
The Black Press is our local newsroom. The printed newspaper remains the “trusted messenger” and permanent record of our culture, our communities, and the due process provisions of the Constitution guaranteeing our First Amendment Rights.
Our newspapers have embraced social media as an additional tool, just as mainstream giants like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post continue in print while expanding their presence in the digital world. Our “local newsrooms” continue to be the link between our communities of color and the many public policy issues, legislative and administrative decisions affecting all our lives.
The communities we serve contribute over 4 trillion dollars a year to the American economy. We, the Black Press, continue to provide the leadership that allows our communities to connect the dollars we spend to the issues affecting our lives and the return on the investments we make in spending our monies with those who do or do not do business with us in return for the dollars they get from us.
Our local newsrooms look forward to strengthening our coverage and relationships with those individuals and organizations, as well as elected officials fighting for us on so many fronts.
The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) is encouraging our communities to re-examine our spending habits to support those who support our papers and media outlets as physical proof of alliances with our market shares.
We must remember that there can be no leadership without information, and we, the Black Press, are still the most “trusted” source of information for and about our communities.
We invite you to join us in spreading the word to Corporate America to support our newspapers, even as our newspapers continue to support us.
Subscribe to our newspapers, newsletters, and daily updates that so many of us offer. Support with your dollars those who support us with their dollars in our media outlets. We are not calling for boycotts, but the fair exchange of Corporate America spending dollars with us as we spend our dollars with them.
Let’s make a real difference with what we do rather than just what we say.
