Capital Press Club Podcast
Capital Press Club Podcast
Capital Press Club Legacy Podcast #19 - Legacy and Future of Black Television
Unlock the captivating legacy and promising future of Black television as we trace its evolution from WGPR, the groundbreaking first Black-owned TV station, to today's digital platforms. With special guest Derek Kenney, we reflect on the strides made by pioneers like Bob Johnson and the enduring influence of networks such as BET. Discover how the digital age is reshaping the landscape of Black-owned media, offering both opportunities and challenges for platforms like Oprah Winfrey's OWN, Revolt TV, and Bounce TV. Together, we explore the vibrant shift from traditional broadcasting to a more accessible and diverse online presence.
In a world where misinformation spreads like wildfire, we tackle the pressing issue of social media's role in shaping public perception. A misleading Facebook post about alleged animal abuse in Ohio serves as a case study to differentiate between misinformation and disinformation, emphasizing the necessity of digital media literacy. We further discuss media responsibility in immigration narratives, scrutinizing controversial claims made during a presidential debate. Learn how media can better serve the public with fact-checking and innovative presentation of truth, ensuring that public discourse is informed, balanced, and free from harmful stereotypes and xenophobia. Join us for an episode that challenges norms and inspires change.
Welcome everyone to Episode 19 of the Capitol Press Club Legacy Podcast. I'm Dr Colin Campbell and I am so happy to be here with you for all of you who are watching right now. And of course we always start out with this day in Black history and we have WGPR, a TV station out of Detroit, michigan. It was the first Black owned and operated television station to start out in 1975. Can you believe it? 1975, not that long ago, when we had our first Black O&O. Since then it has changed to an historic center of sorts and a resource center for the community for those looking to get into communications, branch out and do some public service for their community. But we have come a bit away since then and I wanted to bring in the person that I usually chop it up with for this podcast, and that's our man, derek Kenney, who's with us today.
Speaker 2:Hey, Colin, I'm back. I'm back. Come on camera again.
Speaker 1:Derek, you're back on camera.
Speaker 2:Yes, indeed, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's right. So you know we were just looking at WGPR and you know it wasn't that long ago that we had our first black O and O. How far do you think we've come since then? I would say we've done okay, but not great.
Speaker 2:If you take out Byron Allen, then I don't know, I don't know, I don't really know the stats. For a long time it was a big deal that we had Bob Johnson that owned BET. Initially that was a huge deal. But now I couldn't tell you how many black-owned broadcast TV stations there are. I know that there's a cable TV station, news One, from Radio One, kathy Hughes, I think they own a TV station or maybe two on the cable side, but who knows? But we do know there's a multitude of media organizations, informational media organizations, owned by African Americans. So you know, if you're looking at it that way, then it's different. But TV I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 1:When you say media stations, do you mean stations or do you mean like platforms?
Speaker 2:Platforms, platforms. Yeah, they're more platforms.
Speaker 1:I don't know the exact number of black owners today. We do. We did have Bob Johnson, but he sold BET to Viacom. If we remember, we had the black news channel recently and of course that went downhill. Of course the investors in that weren't 100 black. And then we also did have TV one and they got rid of their news division, or at least their conventional news division. They may still have news on it, but it is definitely smaller in its presence and news delivery than it was several years ago when they were hitting some of the top news in the zeitgeist that really impacted Black society and had us thinking about what was happening in our communities and how it compared to those in other sectors of our population.
Speaker 1:So when we were looking at Black ONOs today, there isn't really a station that I could point to that says, okay, this is a legacy type broadcast station that's still reaching the masses, talking about issues that pertain to Black people, of Black people, of Black people, I should say, and those who own the station and those behind the scenes. So it's kind of discouraging if you try to look at the progress that was made and the progress that we still have to make when it comes to that A flip side of that argument may be what you suggested. Maybe the movement isn't there anymore and we shouldn't be looking for it there anymore. We should be looking for media presence online and looking at the various platforms which we call digitally mediated communication spaces, kind of like what we're doing now. We talked about electronically communicated digital spaces, but I'd like to say digitally today, because everything is digital.
Speaker 2:Everything is digital, yeah.
Speaker 1:Everything is broken down into its very finite basic terms as binary code, which then translates into more elaborate code. That brings us to where we are today, where I can be in a different location than you are and still see you, still hear you, and we can have a communicative dyad through what I refer to as a digitally mediated communication space.
Speaker 2:Now, I didn't mean to cut you off, but I did ask Mr Google, as we do these days, and pretty soon we'll be asking Mr Chad GPT what are the black-owned TV stations? And we missed. The biggest one was OWN. So you have. Own Oprah Winfrey's network you have TV One, you have Revolt TV, which is still black owned, I believe, even with all the ditties going through that's a whole nother story.
Speaker 2:You have Bounce TV. I thought he sold the shares to his employees or something. I'm not sure how he did that, but he did make some get the ball out of my hands type of maneuvering exactly. They still have the Africa Channel, aspire TV and the Black Family Channel, and I'm not sure if the Black Family Channel is still there or not and there are others too, I think the African Diaspora Channel, there's Sahara Reporters or something like that.
Speaker 1:There are a few. But the thing is, I do wonder if these are legitimate stations, like TV stations you can get on cable, or if these are digital platforms that you can only get if you're streaming, if you have internet, and I think there should be a distinction there. So, of course, before the explosion of the internet and before streaming became popular, the Legacy broadcast, like wgpr or even BET. That was cable like you get, oh, and even me and see, yes, you could, if you had cable, you were able to watch these stations. But then now you have other tv stations or quote unquote tv stations or networks that are only online, and maybe those are, maybe several of those are black, oh and oh, and then I think that number significantly increases because you could say okay, I'm starting my own network. There's another one, um, the name eludes me. I think it's kubi k-u-b-i-t-v or something not to be.
Speaker 1:It's okay. Okay, and it's probably kind of wrong because kubi sounds too close to tube. Again, I know it's not to be, because this one I'm talking about only shows Black-owned content, and I believe it's also Black-owned. There's another one too, all Black Channel or something Georgia, but again I think that's a streaming station and not really one that you could get on cable. So I don't know if we really should go back and look at stations that are exclusively on cable or network, like the old school way, and that we really should just be focusing on streaming platforms, because that's where a lot of people are receiving their content, and including us. At least the last poll I checked Black Americans look for content more on streaming devices at escalated rates, above other demographics, watching more hours online than we are collectively. But I think, per capita, being that we're roughly 13 to 15 percent of the population, I believe that we actually watch more of our content online than other demographics. So there's that we can also have conversation about new black media, which I plan to have in the future, looking at just different content creators out there calling attention to various issues, from reparations to black conservatism, who are creating their own channels and trying to get messaging out there that we really wouldn't see on legacy media or on a cable station. So I do still want to give a shout out to WGRS. What is it WGRS?
Speaker 1:I believe it's WGRS, the station out of Detroit, michigan, there and just some of the strides that they made WGPR, rather I should have thought like NPR, wgpr, public radio and, yeah, just the inroads that they made, because obviously they set the stage for other networks to be put into motion.
Speaker 1:Especially in the 70s and particularly late 70s, there were programs designed to incentivize Black ownership when it came to media. Of course, we have fallen way below that since then and those incentives have been removed. Thus, we aren't seeing the type of programming that we would have seen back then. When we think about some of the public awareness issues, when we think about the issues that are entrenched within Black society, when it comes to socioeconomics, when it comes to sociopolitics, we aren't seeing that type of programming that is being broadcast and sent to us collectively like we did maybe in the boomer generation or the silent generation when they were a bit younger. So that is a bit concerning. I think that because we get caught up in other issues of zeitgeist, which to me can be very trivial and very distracting. And, dk, before we move to something that fits in those guidelines, I wanted to see if there's anything else you wanted to say about WGPR or about the legacy of Black television networks.
Speaker 2:I find it curious that Black radio was substantial and I guess is still probably substantial, with networks like American Urban Radio Network and Black Press Radio, but TV never really took off. Tv ownership never took off. We have black owned newspapers, of course. You have NNPA that represents them. You have the NABOB with the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, right, but that's mostly radio stations. Why do you think it is that one of the barriers in place that makes it harder, or made it harder, to acquire TV stations in such a significant way that we never really took off in terms of purchasing and owning them?
Speaker 1:I think one of the biggest things that we have to think about are the economics that are involved in purchasing a station, getting the licensing and coming up with content. It is an expensive venture. The licensing than coming up with content. It is an expensive venture. That's where BNC went wrong is that they weren't able to manage their finances when it came to the station. Remember, when you get these stations, you have to pay for licensing, you have to pay for registrations, then there are all these other associated fees with owning a station that you have to pay annually. Then, of course, any revenues that you get, you have to pay taxes. On top of that you do have to get advertising you do have to get decent talent.
Speaker 1:You can't just throw anyone on screen One. They have to have a type of beauty, aesthetic, obviously it's television. Then they have to be knowledgeable, of course, and then they want to be paid so that they can make a living. So there's that, not, of course. And then they want to be paid so that they can make a living. So there's that, not to mention all of the other pieces of the puzzle that need to be financed. If you want advertising, you've got to pay people who are out there, sales and marketing people who are out there trying to get the advertising. You have people that are managing the traffic, meaning the programming of your station. What shows are they going to put on? Especially if you are showing programming for several hours a day? How are you going to fill those hours? And that's why, when you get cable news, for example, they repeat stories or they have breaking news unnecessarily, because they want people to continually watch that station around the clock, if possible.
Speaker 1:When you're dealing dealing with tv, you need to know what your hours are. And when you do figure that out, what are you going to put in those blocks, those chronological blocks to keep eyes on the station, keep people engaged, day after day, week after week, year after year? And I think that's part of the challenge, because you do have to pay for all of that and, like you say, you get what you pay for. If you pay people who aren't that expensive, or you pay people you know just cheaply, that's the talent you may get and it's not going to keep people in. So that's another reason All right.
Speaker 1:So one of the things we want to talk about a little bit as well, even though it happened several days ago, were the conversations in media surrounding some of the claims of Hait critique is that this is a big distraction from the issues that really need to be discussed. And, of course, you have the flooding that took, that is taking place down south, where you have thousands of people displaced, some hundreds without power, things like that. You have people who are still facing poverty, as we still battle with inflation, even though it says that national inflation trends, that inflation trends are changing downward. You still have people who are struggling to pay their bills, to get the necessities that they need for sustenance, things like that, sustenance, things like that. And we've kind of been distracted by this conversation of just mendacious statements about migrants to gin up the public and stoke fears.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's strange, but it's the world we live in, because it starts with a person. Well, I did according to what is it? Wl? I'll bring this in to us. Give me just a moment to bring this in. It starts with a Facebook post, alright, so I know it became popular with a statement from the during the live debate, but it started. This is where I believe it started right here, let's see, can you? Where I believe it started right here, let's see, can you see that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me see.
Speaker 2:Alright. So there's a post from a woman in Springfield in the Facebook group that says warning to all our beloved pets and those around us. My neighbor informed me that her daughter's friend had lost her cat. She checked pages, kennels, asked around, etc. One day she came home from work as soon as she stepped out of her car, looked towards the neighbor's house where Haitians live and saw her cat hanging from a branch, like you do a deer for butchering, and they were carving it up to eat. I've been told they are doing this to dogs. They have been doing it at snyder park with the ducks and geese, as I was told that last bit by rangers and police. Please keep a close eye on these animals.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's according to a tv station in cincinn, ohio, where the origin came. But this is a danger of where we live now, the society we live in now, where one person, who may or may not have all the wits about them, doing one post based on hearsay because they didn't see anything. She was saying something that she heard from someone else that may or may not have some type of basis of truth or could have been a joke, and presented it as truth, and it started as a little statement in a small town, ohio, and it's gotten up to the highest offices of america. How powerful is social media now and what? What do we need to do to ensure that fake news, that a lot of it comes from unsound sources these days? How do we fight that? How do we combat that as professional communicators?
Speaker 1:We have to raise awareness when it comes to digital media literacy, something that I've taught before in colleges and that is alerting the public that misinformation can spread faster than the truth can. Now we've heard that popular aphorism that a lie can make it around the world several times before the truth makes it once, and so that post was from a woman who was posting it. I don't know if she was just exaggerating something that she may have heard or if she was doing it as a joke. She since apologized to the town and to the people in her community for posting that, because she realizes how far the post was taken, even though it was not truthful at all was taken, even though it was not truthful at all.
Speaker 1:The closest thing to that was a woman who, I believe, was dealing with mental issues, who may have tried to eat a cat but didn't take place in Springfield. She was not Haitian and she was dealing with mental issues, and so there was some kind of video on that. Now, the part that was taken out of context if it even remotely closely existed to what this woman posted, I believe, was this woman's Facebook post. Now, it may have gotten conflated with the other woman perhaps, but if you tell like, this woman's narrative was saying that her daughter's friend or her daughter saw a cat in a yard hanging from a tree. So the stories between what really happened with a woman many miles away and this story is different. This one, the one on Facebook, the one that you just showed, is the one that for some reason got all the attention and was the genesis of so much misinformation, and now I believe it's disinformation. Anyone who tries to share that story and tries to validate it, I think, is complicit in disinformation. And for those of you who may not know, the difference because we do tend to conflate both of these terms is that misinformation can be information that is spread mistakenly, usually not for malicious intent, while disinformation is something that is meant to purposely mislead the public, deliberately give mixed messaging or incorrect or inaccurate messaging to sway public opinion or someone's individual opinion, and so that's why I think, at this point, now that it's been widely debunked and it was shown not to be true, anyone who shares this information or who perpetuates it is really complicit and is enabling to those who want to spread disinformation. And I think on platforms such as X or Facebook or TikTok, I wouldn't mind seeing more fact-checking Now. There is going to be a lot of labor involved in that.
Speaker 1:I do believe that Facebook was involved in more fact checking before, but should we need to fact check someone who's just showing an opinion of something that they think they may have heard? That's when you start. I think we could go down a slippery slope. So anytime somebody expresses something doesn't need to be fact-checked, and I don't know if that's necessarily the case. I think if something is pushed forward as something truthful, especially from a politician, from a company, then it could be fact-checked, because then people will start to absorb it as something that is more meaningful and something more substantive and something more accurate.
Speaker 1:But if it's the average person just throwing stuff online, I don't know if it necessarily needs to be fact-checked. Then again, who's the average person If Elon Musk throws something online? That's not true, which he's been known to do very often these days. Should that be fact-checked? Being that X has millions of followers, perhaps that should be the case. So I don't have a definitive answer on that right now, but I do lean towards accountability, fact-checking, making sure the truth gets out there, especially people who have a news background. I think this would be particularly sensitive to them, because they would not want to see myths, mistruths, being passed around like they were the truth, because that does affect people's opinions and thoughts on various issues.
Speaker 2:Now, I know I know we started talking about it, but maybe we shouldn't assume that everyone knows why this is a relevant subject. Where did this hit the national stage? The story actually became uber relevant. I think you alluded to the debate, but in what form was this presented? As factual information from one of the most trusted, or should be trusted, sources in the country?
Speaker 1:Yeah, this was the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, and at one point, the former president talked about how they were eating dogs and cats in Springfield, ohio. Since then, he has talked about a stronger immigration policy, where he'd like to see people sent back to their respective countries, except when it comes to Haitians, for example. I've heard him talking about sending Haitians back to Venezuela. The vice presidential candidate who's running with him, jd Vance, talked about sending Haitians back to Haitia, I believe. Or Haiti-a, something like that. Haitians back to Haitia, I believe, or Haiti-a, something like that. I wasn't going to laugh. I wasn't going to laugh. Remember, this is a nonpartisan organization, nonpartisan podcast. But yes, derek, you know the history and you know how xenophobia plays out in this country. I do too.
Speaker 1:We've also seen how Haitians are often vilified and maligned ever since they gained their independence One of the first, not one of the first, let me correct myself the first country to liberate itself from chattel slavery, before the Americas, before Brazil. And they've paid a penalty for that ever since. A country that is still developing, as they say, one that is impoverished, one that is ripe with a lot of political upheaval. And, you know we can't say, without again getting into too many politics, that the US didn't have a part in it somehow. And so you do have migrants who come here looking for a better opportunity because, frankly, that is the type of culture that we put out into our media that this is the land of opportunity, that things are great here, you can be independent and free and you're not going to face political persecution, you are able to exercise religious freedoms. So why wouldn't this be a beacon for lots of people who face those particular sociopolitical issues to come here? Why wouldn't they want to come here?
Speaker 1:So you do have people coming here, but then, of course, when they get here, they also realize that we do deal with issues of race, we deal with issues of xenophobia, we deal with issues of white hegemony, and I think this is the latest big news item even though some people would debate whether or not it's actually news to really hit the airwaves and to talk about race in this country. And remember DK. This is just a few weeks after we talked about the former vice president questioning the blackness of the vice president of the vice president. So here we are again talking about another migrant community with heavy melanin in their skin, who is being maligned and vilified as others and being almost like social probate in the people's pets for consumption.
Speaker 1:I mean, you almost can't make this stuff up, but our media are putting this out here and they're focusing on it week after week. It's still a topic of conversation. The quotation was actually on Saturday Night Live last night, as we broadcast live on Sunday evening Eastern Standard Time. So it's still part of the zeitgeist. People are still discussing it and, of course, this puts added pressure on Haitians who are just trying to lead their regular lives, most of them trying to be productive members of society and add to the greatness of what America should be.
Speaker 2:What do you think the state of media is now? Are we in a position, are we in danger, when radio was the only or the main way of communicating across the country, are we in a position? Are we in danger? Yeah, we have checks and balances in place, in a way that we tend to hold ourselves accountable, and you do have counter-messaging out there.
Speaker 1:For the number of people out there who are saying that Haitians are eating cats and dogs, for example. You have a number of people out there saying that this is not true. To perpetuate this stereotype or to perpetuate this lie rather, let's call it what it is is very deleterious to not just the Haitian community but also America as a whole. And so you do have that. Could we do more? Definitely, just like I suggested before, I think that media literacy should be a bigger part of our curriculum in younger grades definitely a college course. As we continue to interrogate what our media are putting out there, there should also be fact-checking. I think that's important. I think that fact-checking during the debate is popular. Years ago, you may remember, derek, a pop-up video. Vh1 had a pop-up video where they would add information and context to different videos that they showed on their programs, right, so you could know where Michael Jackson was born or his first performance on stage with his brothers as part of the Jackson 5. Rest in power to Tito Jackson, who passed away recently, right? But you did have these pop-ups where people could glean information that they didn't ordinarily know and things that would add context and understanding to the videos, and I think that would be helpful to have something similar, even if not as animated as a pop-up bubble, but just facts on the screen saying this is the truth behind what's happening. And you do find that there are some platforms that do this. One is called middle ground. I've seen this on YouTube, where they have these debates where somebody or a group of people take a controversial issue and they talk about their positions on said controversial issue. This could mean anything having to do with men's rights to abortion, rights to LGBTQIA+, to racism, to genderism, misogyny, to misandry. They have people talking about this and then they'll put factual information on the screen below it when someone makes a claim. Now, I don't think this is all done in real time. A lot of this is done in post-production, which obviously you can't do if you're having a live debate, but it is possible.
Speaker 1:You could have a few expected talking points that are already flushed out and they already have the facts ready to present to people. For example, if you're doing a presidential debate, you know that immigration policy is going to be a big issue, especially if you know what the questions are. So you have a few macros already programmed with facts about immigration. If you have issues about the economy. You know you're going to ask about the economy. You have factual information about the economy coming up on the screen that inflation has actually gone down in Q2 or Q3 of this year. It's not on an upward trend like it was at the beginning of the year or at the end of 2023. If you're talking about incarceration, you can talk about the prison population and where it stands right now with information that was researched before.
Speaker 1:I think this would be very important for the American public to see and, of course, those on the outside of America who are watching what we're doing. I do think that media hold a huge responsibility on informing the public. We look more and more towards mobile media, our devices, streaming video, and I think that for those who have an established legacy of some integrity I know that's debatable, but these legacy media organizations have more integrity, for example, than the average content creator who just knows how to operate a camera and talk for a good hour and a half to three hours. So I do think that these legacy media channels, these established streaming channels, should have some type of method to put facts on the screen, rather than someone just bloviating about their opinion and have people accepting it as truth simply because they trust the person's face or they like that person's point of view or personal biases.
Speaker 2:All right Now. So let's take that from there. You are a communications professional responsible for the public information from Springfield Ohio. All of a sudden, the debate happens and this becomes national news. What do you do to ensure that the right information is going out from Springfield Ohio?
Speaker 1:Well, I think what they did was check with the mayor of Springfield, any town officials, who quickly debunked what the claims were. And I think that CNN, other networks have said well, this is what the town mayor, the city mayor, is saying, this is what the town commissioner, I believe, or let's just say town official, is saying, this is what the Ohio governor is saying, and they put that information out there, that it is not true, and I think that has helped to tamp down some of the misconceptions about what is actually happening. So there you, it is not true, and I think that has helped to tamp down some of the misconceptions about what is actually happening. So there you have it, derek All right, hey, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you and, in a nutshell, quickly Questions for sure. Yeah yeah, Interesting times we live in and I will challenge us to the next time we come around, because I know we're getting ready to wrap up to revisit NABJ's interview with Kamala Harris. I don't think we talked about that yet. We did talk about their interview with Trump. We talked about Kamala's interview with CNN, so I think it's a good time. I think next time we come together let's talk about that.
Speaker 1:Oh, most definitely, yeah, and we'll see you next time here for the Capital Press Club Legacy podcast. I'm your host, colin Campbell, joined by Derek Kennedy, derek Kenny Pardon me, derek, pardon me, derek Kenny, and we'll see you next time.