Black Media in Serious Danger, Says Jesse Jackson’s Wall Street Media Panel

The nation’s black radio stations, television outlets and print and online media organizations are in grave danger of becoming extinct because of the gross inequitable appropriation of advertising dollars from Madison Avenue, says the Rev. Jesse Jackson and a panel of media professionals at the Wall Street Project Economic Summit in New York.

Munson Steed, the CEO of Steed Media Group Inc. joined the likes of James Winston, the executive director of NABOB, National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters; Michael Copps, the former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, Herman Hartman, the president and CEO of Hartman Publishing Company; Melody Spann-Cooper; and Steven C. Roberts, the president of Roberts Broadcasting Company to convene to discuss ways to reverse this dangerous trend. There are several reasons for this perilous position that black media finds itself in: 1. Major multinational and Fortune 500 corporations, who used to advertise with black media have redirected those dollars to general market advertising. 2. Many corporations believe they do not need to advertise with African American media outlets nor invest in urban America because their products and services already enjoy enormous market penetration. For example, Louis Vuitton products are bought by African American women at a 35 percent clip, even though they represent a small fraction of the U.S. population. Therefore, they and corporations surmised that advertising with that subset was unnecessary. 3. African Americans have failed repeatedly to hold corporations accountable despite boasting in access of a gargantuan $950 billion annual buying power. This collective amount will swell to $1.1 trillion by 2015. –terry shropshire