How Black-Owned Media Companies Fight to Survive in the Face of Racial and Economic Disparities

The 17 staffers who comprise the masthead of the Amsterdam News rarely come inside the newspaper’s Harlem headquarters. Instead, they work from home, take Zoom meetings and communicate by chat.

The newspaper’s office building, located at 2340 Eighth Ave. by West 125th Street, has remained mostly unchanged since the storied Black publication moved in during the 1940s. Now its four editorial and publishing floors are mostly empty, just like the mostly empty lobby. But through the glass, there’s a view of archival print editions piled up in a room. What appears as a sparse building is, in fact, a fully functioning Black-owned media company with a rich history.

The worn-out sign bearing the Amsterdam News logo in front of the building belies the pillar it is in the African American community. The publication was founded on Dec. 4, 1909, by Black entrepreneur James H. Anderson, in his home at 132 West 65th St,. in what was then called the San Juan Hill neighborhood, later to be known as Lincoln Center. From its beginnings, the paper covered local news about Black people.

The Amsterdam News led the way in covering the Civil Rights Movement, having staff journalists like James L. Hicks reporting on racism in the Deep South, penning stories such as Emmett Till’s murder, and the Black students in Arkansas who became known as the Little Rock Nine. In 1958, Malcolm X began publishing his own column in the paper titled “God’s Angry Man.”

Decades later, during the 1989 Central Park Jogger case in which five Black and Latino teenagers were wrongfully convicted of raping a white woman, the Amsterdam News broke from the sensationalized biased stories written by mainstream white publications. Instead, it highlighted the flaws in the police investigation and made comparisons to other racial injustice cases. And, yet, having covered more than a century’s worth of groundbreaking events, the Amsterdam News now functions with a barebones staff, many of whom juggle responsibilities across editorial, advertisement and production. So, the question is: Why?

Over the last 115 years, the paper has experienced multiple evolutions and changes in leadership. While remaining focused on Black communities in New York, its voice broadened to report on Black people across the U.S. and the globe. Currently, the Amsterdam News is in the middle of a digital redevelopment. But its quest for reinvention falls on a skeletal staff.

And this pared-down environment is quite common among Black-owned media companies.

Publications that serve mostly African American audiences have had an ongoing challenge of getting advertising dollars and investment capital. They grapple with smaller audiences, fewer subscriptions and limited operating budgets. But content developed by and for African Americans has proven itself to be vital since the founding of the first Black-owned publication, Freedom’s Journal, in 1827 in New York. In the first edition, owners and editors of the paper, Samuel Cornish and John B. Russworm stated its mission that the Black press has followed ever since: “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the public been deceived by misrepresentations in things which concern us dearly.”

When the pandemic hit in 2020, many Black-owned media companies feared disaster. Several newsstands around Harlem closed, which had been a long-established system of distribution for the Amsterdam News.

But also around this time, the topic of systemic racism in the U.S. was at the forefront after the murder of George Floyd, spawning a racial justice movement and ways to make effective change, for a moment at least.

As such, a number of Fortune 500 corporations promised to invest in Black-owned businesses. Large agencies included IPG Mediabrand and GroupM, and powerhouse brands like Target, General Mills, AARP and L’Oreal made public commitments to increase advertising spending.

But as of this year, the investments haven’t been widespread.

Advertising is critical to news organizations, from CNN and The New York Times to entertainment companies like Disney and Comcast. And these large companies have had to cut shows, sections and staff when ad-dollars steeply drop. But low advertising revenue is even more devastating for Black media companies that face more disparities and challenges in the business sector.

According to a 2023 AdAge report, using data from the Standard Media Index, while Black-owned companies reported increased spending, they still represented only 1.16% of overall advertising deals, underscoring how much more work needs to be done to advance Black-owned media.

For the past 10 years, Ali Milliner has worked in sales at the Amsterdam News and has been

the head of branded content and digital advertising since 2022. Over the last year, he’s been focused on updating the website and procuring advertising dollars, he said.

For the daily operations, he leads a team of three, with each overseeing several responsibilities.

It’s arduous work and Milliner performs much of it. First, he identifies potential clients who want to reach Black consumers. Then he contacts them by email, phone, or LinkedIn. Once he connects with the right person, Milliner finds out if there’s a budget to spend with the Amsterdam News. Using metrics, he then explains how an investment in his newspaper would be beneficial. Once the two parties have reached an agreement, Milliner oversees the campaign.

But a real challenge is talking to companies that often don’t have the Amsterdam News on their radar. And those cold calls can often be “tougher,” said Milliner. To land lucrative accounts like Memorial Sloan-Kettering, JP Morgan Chase, and AARP, Milliner operates as the salesperson, and creates the proposal for the client.

“Because we're smaller, we have to wear both hats where we not only acquire the sale and the business, but we also have to facilitate the actual campaign,” Milliner said.

Competitors, such as the New York Daily News, typically have one person on staff whose sole job is to facilitate sales for an advertisement, while another staffer has the responsibility of taking over the client’s campaign after the deal is reached. Milliner has to do both.

But he said the added duties are positioning him to acquire more seniority at the paper.

“I know it's more work, but I do appreciate the ability to basically train on the job for more impactful leadership roles,” Milliner said.

He remembered how advertisers lost faith in the paper before the company began to invest in digital technology aggressively.

“We would have a large buy where the advertiser would put in 20 ads, and because the systems weren't correct, up to date, we would miss publishing some of these ads,” Milliner said, recalling that at one point the number one search for Amsterdam News on Google had been “is the Amsterdam News still open.”

But in the last five years, the paper has been intent on improving its digital presence. Milliner

and the rest of the team attended seminars and partnered with local media groups to learn new technology.

The results from the 2023 tech expansion have been positive, said Milliner. The paper’s digital newsletter, Editorially Black, has grown from 800 subscriptions to 24,000 daily, and an additional Arts & Entertainment newsletter is in the works. The digital ad revenue from the Amsterdam News website and newsletter has increased from $90,000 a year to now averaging $400,000 with the goal of $600,000 annually. The paper’s digital advertising previously represented about 10% and has now grown to 30%.

Milliner said readers open their newsletter three times the national average, which is attractive to advertisers.

“We grew to a point where we were, again, the voice of the Black community,” Milliner said. “Advertisers who want to connect with the Black community understand that we're the vessel that's going to make that happen.”

But the advertising deals that Black-owned media companies get reveal a systemic

issue of low investment.

According to a 2013 study by the Center for Community Media, 80% of New York City advertising dollars went to mainstream media over minority-owned outlets, despite the fact that minority communities are often the target for the type of messages put out from city agencies.

Amsterdam News has often received the leftover scraps from advertisers, said Milliner, who explained that when brands create a media spending budget, substantial investment is delineated to white media companies. When these same brands decide to reach Black consumers, the remaining dollars are what they spend with the Amsterdam News.

“It’s up to us as a paper to make sure that we're connecting with these companies and holding them accountable… showing them that we are an effective vehicle to get the message across and to connect to our communities that are underserved,” Milliner said.

For independent Black media owners, finding ways to be sustainable is even more challenging.

Unlike legacy publications that have larger audiences and longer business relationships, startups and small news outlets often struggle in both of these areas. Rhonesha Byng and De’Von Christopher Johnson know this all too well.

Byng runs HerAgenda, a digital platform she founded in 2008 that tells personal stories of Black female leaders in various industries. Johnson is the publisher of Bleu Magazine, a fashion and lifestyle glossy founded in 2006.

In terms of staff size, audience engagement and revenue, both entrepreneurs have remained in “startup” mode, as they’ve struggled for years to grow their respective brands. Both Byng and Johnson get by with freelancers to create stories for their platforms.

Johnson is a part of a team of three who all multi-task in spearheading Bleu, which until 2019, had been solely a print publication before expanding into a website.

To build support for both of their ventures and other struggling Black media outlets, the two publishers founded the nonprofit organization, Black Owned Media Equity and Sustainability Institute (BOMESI) in 2020.

Johnson, who is based in Harlem, remembered sitting on the steps of Low Library at Columbia University when he first contemplated the idea of BOMESI.

“How do I survive my business, survive the pandemic?” Johnson said to himself.

His idea came when major brands were pledging commitments to Black-owned businesses.

“We were definitely benefiting like every other diverse publisher was benefiting from those relationships and new pledges and some money trickled in,” Johnson said. “A lot less trickled in than what was pledged or stated.”

There still had to be a major push in convincing companies to invest, said Johnson.

“Although in 2020, those pledges might have gotten us in the door and gotten us our first meeting, the business case for working with us is what has maintained those relationships,” he added.

Cheryl Thompson-Morton is the director of the Black Media Initiative of the Center for

Community Media at CUNY’s Newmark Journalism School. Her center provides resources and support for Black media outlets, as well as conducts research. Thompson-Morton said advertising dollars are often going to Black-targeted and not Black-owned media, like The Root or BET, which have established audiences.

“Even in the present day, we see that black-owned outlets are often getting smaller advertising dollars than their mainstream counterparts,” Thompson said. “Part of this has to do with niche audiences. But also part of it has to do with an undervaluing of our communities.”

Thompson explained that advertisers must first recognize the importance of Black media outlets

and their audiences, before any investment models will change. And she believes the steady attacks on DEI, affirmative action, and other racial equity initiatives will further diminish support from advertisers.

“I think some of these programs will probably see retraction before they even get a chance to make reach,” Thompson said.

Media company Digiday recently reported that despite these promises to support Black companies, the media still remains an overwhelmingly white industry. A Pew Research poll in 2022 showed that only 4% of media is Black-owned. The report also showed that 76% of journalists defined themselves as white, 8% as Hispanic, 6% as Black, and 3% as Asian.

Agencies such as GroupM touted their investments in Black and diverse-owned media in a press release last year, saying it was expanding from 2% up to 5%. Another agency, IPG MediaBrands claimed its investments tripled between 2021 and 2022.

But journalists like Roland Martin who hosts his own daily digital news show, “Roland Martin Unfiltered,” called out advertising agencies like GroupM, along with other media agencies for not being specific in how much they were investing.

In March 2023, Martin hosted a special edition of his daily digital news show that focused on how Black media continues to be shut out from advertising revenue because of racism in corporate America. The segment featured a panel of Black media leaders.

“We’re made to jump through hoops and prove ourselves to get crumbs when others get millions,” Martin said on the show.

Todd Brown, advertising executive and co-founder of Urban Edge Network, participated on the panel. Between 2012 and 2015, Brown was a former chief revenue officer for Johnson Publishing Company, which owned Ebony and Jet magazines. Brown said white media companies were getting 5- and 10-times higher advertising rates despite Ebony and Jet having the same level of circulation.

“So we had to fight and beg for a page and then we got the smallest rate and the smallest number of pages,” Brown said. “Then we wouldn’t get paid for sometimes up to six to nine months after we actually printed and distributed the magazine.”

The low rates and delayed payments eventually forced the company to sell, said Brown.

Martin called on corporations to be fully transparent.

“For all of these agencies and all of these companies to say, ‘We are exceeding our goals,’ prove it. Show us the numbers, show us who is getting what,” Martin said. “If you want us to actually believe that you’re hitting the goals, be transparent because you demand that I be transparent with my numbers.” He further emphasized that Black-owned media outlets must speak up and demand what is owed to them.

In highlighting the disparity between Black and white-owned media and their relationship with advertisers, Martin used the example of Quibi, a short-lived streaming platform founded by media executive Jeffrey Katzenburg. The project raised $150 million dollars in advertising before it even launched in April 2020, including from large brands like Discovery, General Mills, Proctor and Gamble, Walmart, and T-Mobile, an opportunity Black startups do not receive, he said. Despite the level of investment, Quibi shut down after just six months.

Byron Allen, who owns the largest Black media company, the Allen Media Group, has also been vocal about advertisers not keeping their word to invest in Black media. In June 2021, Allen filed a $10 billion federal lawsuit against McDonalds, alleging that it did not follow through on a commitment to increase spending with Black-owned media to 5% by 2024. Allen has said he is using the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Section 1881, as the legal grounding for the suit.

Rhonesha Byng said her media collective BOMESI was created in 2020 as a response to the promises and pledges that were put out by the various corporations that said they wanted to support and invest in Black and diverse owned media.

Currently, there are 250 Black and diverse owned media outlets that BOMESI works with, ranging from legacy organizations like the Amsterdam News to new startups. Every month the group holds town hall meetings to share strategy, solutions, and tech systems. It also serves as an advocacy group in connecting advertisers to their platforms.

“I, along with my colleagues and peers, wanted to eliminate whatever excuses that they could come up with that would allow them to say, ‘We tried, but it didn't work,’” Byng said.

Byng’s goal is to grow her company and employ a full-time staff. Her BOMESI co-founder De’Von Johnson is focused on understanding digital advertising for the survival of his company. Every day, he now immerses himself in things like Google Analytics, viewable impressions, and site loads.

“All those sorts of things, go into a successful relationship with an advertiser or an agency. And no one teaches you that. You have to learn that,” Johnson said.

But in spite of running a small company, Johnson said he never reduces Bleu’s advertising rate because of the value of Black consumers.

“Our digital rates are above the average…and our print rates are higher than those for publications of our size, because we believe our audience, Black men, Black women, are the most valuable consumers in the world, and therefore you should pay to engage with them,” Johnson said.

BOMESI advocates for its members connecting them with advertisers. But they are also hypervigilant in their warnings about doing business with “predatory” companies who don’t follow through with their commitments or appear to be taking advantage of a moment, said Johnson. This also includes calling out advertisers who use people of color in their ads but decline to invest in Black and brown media outlets.

Denise Rolark Barnes, publisher of The Washington Informer, a weekly Black newspaper based

in Washington, D.C., founded by her father in 1964, sees an increase in advertising spends when “Black people were top of mind,” such as Black History Month.

Barnes said the big increase the paper experienced actually came from grants after George Floyd’s murder.

The Afro in Baltimore, the country’s oldest Black newspaper founded in 1892 and still family-owned, had a similar experience with advertisers paying more attention when a holiday was involved.

“They were checking a box, ‘Okay, we did it, we can wipe our hands and say we invested,’” said Lenora Howze, the Afro’s executive director. While her company experienced a moment of increased ad dollars in 2020, they were “one and dones,” she added.

Howze first came to The Afro in 2012 as the advertising director, before being

promoted to her current position in 2018, in which she oversees all other departments,

including advertising, editorial, and production.

Having previously worked for The Baltimore Sun for 15 years, Howze said she sees the clear contrast in how national brands do business with white mainstream publications compared with legacy Black ones like The Afro. She’s even experienced difficulty getting advertisers and local brands on the phone.

Howze said that being a trusted voice in the community is a strong selling point when she is in discussions with advertisers. But sometimes advertisers cite the Afro’s smaller audience and reach as a reason to disqualify the company when asking about the paper’s distribution.

“The Afro, and the Black press at large, can't necessarily compete with the numbers of a major daily in the same market,” Howze said. The conversations can often feel like a setup, she added, because the advertisers already know the Afro has smaller distribution numbers but ask for the figures anyway so they have a reason not to invest.

Both The Afro and The Informer publish in print and digitally, but have shifted their focus to building a larger digital presence in recent years. The Afro has up to 500,000 readers a month, as well as roughly 20,000 subscribers through its newsletter and 600,000 followers on Facebook.

Despite the challenges, Rolark-Barnes is committed to the longevity of Black-owned media companies.

“The Black press, we stand for something,” she said. “I would want the next owner or owners of this publication to really stand for something when it comes to, as Dr. King would say, justice and equity.”