Back in the days of Frederick Douglass, you could send abolitionist newspapers through the mail for free. This is a loophole the powers that be closed up a long time ago. Not only is freedom not free, but talking about it to an audience of any size costs money.
This week we are publishing fewer articles than usual. Glen Ford and Margaret Kimberley are taking a well-deserved break, and we are doing work under the hood. Black Agenda Report is having problems, but they're good problems to have, and we are solving them. Some weeks ago we realized that our hosting arrangement had for almost two years imposed an artificial cap on our readership. Any time more than seventy or eighty people were on our site at once, it ground to a halt. When at peak hours traffic ninety, a hundred or more at a time accessed it, the site was inaccessible. We're writers and journalists, not tech gurus, so we asked for help.
Black Agenda Report is Publishing Fewer Articles This Week Due to the Holidays. Oh... and We're Growing.
This week we are publishing fewer articles than usual. Glen Ford and Margaret Kimberley are taking a well-deserved break, and we are doing work under the hood. Black Agenda Report is having problems, but they're good problems to have, and we are solving them. Some weeks ago we realized that our hosting arrangement had for almost two years imposed an artificial cap on our readership. Any time more than seventy or eighty people were on our site at once, it ground to a halt. When at peak hours traffic ninety, a hundred or more at a time accessed it, the site was inaccessible. We're writers and journalists, not tech gurus, so we asked for help.
With the assistance of the good people at Campaign Foundations, www.campaignfoundations.com, we are now implementing a more sophisticated and scalable architecture. When demand for our site rises, we are now able to scale up additional web servers on demand and balance the load between them.
Like many sites, BAR employs what is called a “content management system” or CMS consisting of a back-end database containing stories and site components, assembles its pages with a PHP server, and passes these to a web server which delivers them to you. The use of feature-rich CMS packages like Drupal, which we use, combined with years of material like we've got, can result in very large databases that take a lot of server resources to query. So it's common to separate your database server from your web server, and to have multiple web servers available when demand rises.
Rising demand for Black Agenda Report is good news, and our implementing the technical solution to meet that demand is good news too. It means there is hope that we can eventually come close to being self-sustaining. We have lifted our cap now, and we expect that Black Agenda Report will experience significant growth this year, perhaps doubling or tripling our readership over the next several months.
But this kind of sophisticated technical solution is expensive. Our hosting costs are rising to somewhere between five and eight times what we used to pay. We need to raise ten or fifteen thousand over the next couple months to guarantee our continuity through the summer. Besides the technical fixes that enable us to serve a bigger audience there are other innovations we are weighing and cooking. But now is the time to click the “donate” buttons at the top of every page and the bottom of every story. One-time contributions are welcome. But what we really need are recurring contributions of ten, twenty and more dollars per month. PayPal handles our web payments, but you don't need a PayPal account to contribute.
In a just society, the broadcast airwaves and cables and such would belong to the people. Internet would be a public utility, like paved streets and roads. Back in the days of Frederick Douglass, you could send hundreds or thousands of your abolitionist newspapers through the mail for free. The powers that be closed that hole a long time ago, so we are reliant on you, dear readers, for our support. Our previous web home, Black Commentator, has gone subscription-only. We don't expect to do that. So click the button. Help us make it happen.
We take this opportunity to thank our readers and supporters for the last three years --- we've been publishing weekly since October of 2006. Glen and Margaret and the rest will be back next week. CBC Monitor, watching the Congressional Black Caucus (so you don't have to?) will be back this spring. And the need for independent news and commentary is not going away. Neither will we. Help us stay out here.
The Editors.
Comments
The Conspiracy to Kill Black Media
It is just that sinister. The powers that be want to corral and exploit 38 million African Americans. They want our $1 trillion dollars per year of disposable income. They want us to get none of the trillions of dollars in contractual opportunities afforded by various levels of government and private enterprise. They don’t want us to develop our own businesses for fear of us being free from their oppression and manipulation. It is a difficult task: How do you feign integration without developing a hint of Black economic power? So goes the struggle called Black America.
When nations and governments are overthrown the first thing the perpetrators do is seize the Press. Television and radio stations are shut down and reprogrammed. The printing presses of newspapers are stopped until new, appropriate writers are in place. In his book, “The Black Power Imperative”, Theodore Cross claims that the media is the most important component of power. It leads to thought molding, culture enrichment, communication and eventually economic empowerment. There are many who are threatened about Blacks doing this. We must be vigilant for the media is the foundation of our culture, economic vitality and future.
When cable television started rolling out throughout the nation, they thought they could reverse all of the financial and cultural gains made by such Black owned entities like Motown, Stax, etc. MTV and VH1 would not play Black music. Only Prince and Michael Jackson were allowed. This was a blatant conspiracy. However, through his entrepreneurial finesse and tenacity (like that of Barry Gordy and Al Bell) Bob Johnson established Black Entertainment Television (BET). Its market share swelled as whites and Hispanics joined Black citizens in demanding the good music produced by Black artists. Today, the predominance of music on cable television is Black inclusive of Hip Hop and the money lines can be enjoyed by our artists, managers and local entrepreneurs.
Then, of course, there are the very old and stinky movements against our Black newspapers. One would think that if we have Black advertising agencies that they would provide advertising monies for our newspapers. Advertising revenue is the life blood of a newspaper. So what do the power brokers do? They buy up just about all of the Black owned advertising agencies and have them front for their interests. Don’t believe that a “Black Advertising Firm” is actually Black. It may focus on the Black population but it is managed by whites who want to exploit us and kill our businesses. They run their advertising monies through white owned entities while boycotting Black owned newspapers, radio and television stations. Today, despite the use of historical Black advertising names they are mostly white owned and managed. This hurts.
So, what many of our Black owned media firms are doing is to represent themselves. Go out and fight for the precious advertising and public relations monies. Some of these front companies are their biggest enemies or roadblocks. The situation is critical and all of us must get involved and support our media businesses.
The biggest spender for advertising and public relations is the federal government. So it is a tragic shame that our Black newspapers are getting nothing from them. Even with a Black President it doesn’t seem to matter. If we would get our fair share (12%) from these billions of dollars that are annually spent by federal agencies, our Black newspapers, radio and television stations would not only survive; they would thrive and that means jobs and wealth building in our communities. It is time for the Congressional Black Caucus to stand tall and “throw down” on this issue. “CBC, do what we sent you to do”.
Next, what about these giant corporations who rely on our consumerism to survive? They need to start supporting our press and stations or we need to withdraw our support. Take General Motors for instance. This firm is on the “ropes” and they know that 25% of all the cars they sell go to African Americans. Yet, they choose to have a Jim Crow advertising policy. They don’t want to put a penny into the Black press and we are no longer going to stand for it. We need to buy our cars elsewhere until this corporation gives respect and thanks to the people who keep it alive.
This is how we should work it for all of corporate America. Black America is only as strong as its press. When I say “its press” I am referring to entities that are predominantly owned, managed and worked by us. We cannot be a powerful segment of this great nation unless we are economically empowered and well informed. We get much of that through our press. Defend it and fight for it as family.
Mr. Alford is the co-founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce®. Website: http://www.nationalbcc.org/ Email: halford@nationalbcc.org