Next Up on "Evening Words:" The Future of Media Repair & Examples of Why this Work is Needed
Media 2070 Executive Director Anshantia "Tia" Oso sits down with Dr. James Peterson of WURD Radio to discuss the past and future of Media Reparations
By: MMM Editorial Team and Gabe Garcia
Recently, Dr. James Peterson of WURD Radio (Philadelphia) interviewed Media 2070 Executive Director Anshantia "Tia" Oso, Executive Director of Media 2070, wanting to speak more in depth about media reparations as well as the virtual Town Hall Media 2070 hosted just three weeks ago.
So what is media repair? And why is it important? Oso points to a disruption of government in North Carolina at the turn of the 20th century as a perfect example.
“In 1898 a white mob overthrew the democratically elected government of [Wilmington] North Carolina, and it was a powerful newspaper publisher that actually helped to overthrow them,” said Oso. “It’s important for us to understand that with the Tulsa Race Massacre, specifically the Tulsa Tribune, published incendiary headlines that lead to the massacre.”
One of the common misconceptions is that media reparations are solely about financial compensation, when in reality reparations are also about acknowledging past heinous acts committed by the American media system towards the Black community.
“When we do our visioning sessions when we work with local reparations task force for example, to document the history of media harm in those local areas,” said Oso. “That way they can have a robust harms report when we talk about ‘what does repair look like’? Does repair look like having a media reparations fund where we’re funding locally Black owned media institutions? Does it look like us having community listening sessions where we’re able to document the harms that those local media institutions have made against those communities? It's not just only correcting the historical record, but then also making a promise not to continue to replicate that harm.”
One interesting point Dr Peterson brought up was the part literacy played in the liberation of enslaved peoples and the creation of Black news outlets being a sort of byproduct. In Peterson’s own words:
“I’ve been working a lot on literacy, and one of the things I’ve been researching on literacy is going back into the times where our enslaved ancestors how they embraced literacy, how they looked at it, how vital it was for them in terms of liberation. What lessons do folks like Frederick Douglas and other figures who did a lot to establish some form of Black media during those times? What lessons do they have to tell us about the urgency of Black owned media in the 21st century?”
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Black media has always played a vital role in our resistance and advancing liberation before abolition was even a thing. That’s the power of the word and Black media is synonymous with resistance in our community. - Oso
To which Oso replied:
“Even as we have this history of media harm in this country, we have the history of Black resistance and using media as a tool for our liberation. We see that Frederick Douglas had the North Star. We know that next year’s the 200th Anniversary of the Black Press and Freedom’s Journal. We know the work of Ida B. Well’s and her anti-lynching crusade that actually lead to different policies being passed in order to address the scourge of lynching against our communities. Black media has always played a vital role in our resistance and advancing liberation before abolition was even a thing. That’s the power of the word and Black media is synonymous with resistance in our community.”
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A topic that is not always discussed is how the mainstream media seems to pull the Black community’s focus from Black media, and Dr. Peterson wanted to inquire Oso’s opinion on the subject.
“For the folks in our community who only consume their news from mainstream media, talk about what they’re missing out on,” probed Dr. Peterson. “I want our listeners to be able to go out and tell their friends ‘Hey if you’re not listening to WURD, if you’re not reading Scoop USA, if you’re not consuming Black media, here’s what you’re missing by only watching CNN or by only reading the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Washington Post’.” Not that Dr. Peterson is opposed to mainstream media, but it does bring up a good point.
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In response, Oso had mentioned that research papers written by the Center for Community Media in NY discusses the quality of coverage by Black owned media outlets being more accurate and doing a better job of informing communities, especially when it comes to topics about public health. Another platform, the MLK50 (based in Memphis, TN) is an investigative journalism outlet that was able to get over $12 million of medical debt cancelled for communities in Memphis.
“What they’re missing out on is the voices that are going beyond simply this kind of myth of objectivity and taking a standoffish approach,” said Oso. “We see Black media actually representing communities partnering with communities to inform them, to stand alongside them, to fight alongside them also for our liberation.”
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