Shuttering of Bay State Banner a Blow to Boston Community Media

Everyone here at Open Media Boston was shocked and saddened to hear this week's announcement that the Bay State Banner suspended publication this week - possibly forever, if new investors don't step foward. For over 40 years, the Banner was not only the main African-American media outlet in Boston and Massachusetts, it was also the main community media outlet serving the predominantly African-American Boston neighborhood of Roxbury. We think this aspect of its importance has been less discussed than it should be. Its famously pugnacious editor/publisher Melvin Miller stood up for Roxbury - as he did for the regional African-American community - in every area of its civic and cultural life from the Civil Rights era to the current period of economic malaise. For that reason, we sincerely hope that the Banner gets back on its feet, and that it can at least keep publishing on its website for the forseeable future. If there's anything we can do to help out, we will. We're still a poor and relatively new publication, but we plan to drop the Banner a line this week and offer what assistance we can. We highly encourage our viewers to do the same. And while we certainly can use a good chunk of cash money ourselves, we have to say that we'd rather wait a while longer for donations and investments and see our partisans offer it to the Banner now. We have no trouble stating that the Banner is - to badly paraphrase numerous financial pundits of late - too important to fail.

It may surprise some people to hear that from us. But it should not. No matter how well we build Open Media Boston up into a citywide news operation, we cannot replace publications like the Banner - their experience, the depth of their coverage, their exacting knowldge of their community and its people. Besides, as a purely online operation, there are some people we're just never going to be able to reach - people that only have sporadic internet access or none at all. Given the still-strong digital divide, working-class communities of color like Roxbury have lower internet penetration rates than middle-class and wealthy communities in general and most predominantly white communities in particular. So a print operation like the Banner's is really critical for such a community for at least the next decade. Unfortunately print operations are very expensive in this day and age. That's why we don't have one at OMB. Not because we don't know how to run one, or don't think it's useful to do so, but because it's simply too hard to get the start-up capital to run a new print operation even at our current circulation of about 4,200 weekly viewers.

So in talking about the Banner, we're talking about the kind of publication that plays a really critical and irreplaceable role in its community. And while there has been much discussion in the major media about the serious problem presented by the collapse of major metropolitan newspapers in the last couple of years, the collapse of smaller community newspapers (and radio and TV stations) is no less serious. Because community media like the Banner is absolutely critical to the maintainance of a democratic society. Without independent journalists covering critical issues of the day in every polity at every level, we should all fear for our political future.

We would strongly suggest that people think about that fact. The Banner may be one publication serving one community - and it's easy to be cavalier and say "who cares, some other publication will probably fill the gap at some point in the future." But in our current economy and with the very economic structure of the news industry disintegrating underfoot, that's not necessarily so. And where the Banner goes so have gone hundreds of other community media outlets in recent years in the U.S. Which means that we face a very real possibility of major cities like Boston having a very small number of professional news outlets in the near future.

That is not a good thing. Consider a world without solid journalism - whatever its particular bias. Then consider what the world would be like in its absence. Not a pretty thought, is it?

In any case, if you have some spare cash or investment capital or grants or loans or useful skills or at least a good word, we recommend you contact the Banner soon and see if you can be of assistance. Maybe with some luck and some strong support from around Boston, the Banner can start publishing again before the year is out.

We wish them every success. And Mr. Miller, on journalistic and many other grounds, our hats are off to you.

Jason Pramas is the Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston