Thread by @rolandsmartin

The reason you find it hard to believe is because you don’t understand the reality of Black-owned media today. First, there are VERY FEW Black-owned media who have actual reporters. That’s plural. It comes down to resources. #BlackOwnedMediaMatters 1/8

https://twitter.com/NotLaja/status/1602724427384381441

In the advertising industry, $322B is spent annually. Black-owned media gets .5% of that. That’s ALL Black-owned media. If you assess what is covered, it’s mostly sports and entertainment. And a lot of this is opinion. Not actual reporting. 2/8

The advertising industry doesn’t want to invest in Black-owned news. We are told that we aren’t “brand safe” due to the stories we cover: racism, police brutality, etc. Then there is the issue of Black folks actually supporting Black-owned media. 3/8

Black folks always want to question why we don’t cover this or cover that, but when we do, a lot of us DO NOT support. Many folks on this app will readily share excerpts or clips from MSNBC, CNN, and others, but never #RolandMartinUnfiltered or other @BlkStarNetwork shows. 4/8

We’ve done a DAILY Black news show for four years, we’ve hit 10K live viewers a few times. Now imagine if our show and @BlkStarNetwork did collectively 30M to 50M views a month, that would generate $300K to $750K a month on Youtube. That income alone could allow us to hire 5/8

5-10 reporters. More revenue means more reporters and staff. More reporters and staff mean we can cover more ground. This is why we have the #BringTheFunk Fan Club. Our donors help sustain us. You want Black-owned media covering @theestallion trial, it’s about lack of MONEY. 6/8

There are those of us who are committed to Black-owned media @NotLaja. But this is NOT easy. We are literally fighting for survival. We don’t even get our fair share of political ad dollars. And many celebs don’t even support us financially. When these movies, TV shows 7/8

And docs drop, these networks, movie studios, record labels and streamers will blow us up to come and talk about the project, but we NEVER get any ad dollars. No money, no experienced REPORTERS. Hope you now understand @NotLaja the reality. #BlackOwnedMediaMatters 8/8