Sunday, May 30, 2010

Outreach: African-American Media Outlets

Outreach: African-American Media Outlets
The media contact points beneath the following sample letter are just a start. Save your letters and we'll continue forward with this effort next week. Let's get be aggressive and hit this effort with big numbers of e-mails.

[Sample Letter]

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that once barred workplace discrimination on the basis of race and skin color, is now dead for the vast majority of African-Americans. As a result, the economic gains made by black Americans over the past several decades are evaporating into thin air. Employment credit checks quietly became a workplace discrimination tool in the 90s and today have grown to 50+ percent for all jobs and 80+ percent of all white collar jobs. Long before the Great Recession, “bad credit” in the African-American community was 48 percent. With the outrageously high unemployment numbers now in black America the percentage must be a staggering 60 or 70 percent, if not higher.

While many want to minimize it as mere coincidence instead of racism and bigotry, the reality is that racial inequality in the workplace is now rampant once again. By easily adding a couple additional filters to credit checks (such as predominately black neighborhoods along with first and last names) and the result is that African Americans don’t work. The “Whites Only Need Apply” sign has simply been replaced with a “credit check required for employment” policy – Title VII doesn’t exist! This is happening in a nation that has a black president, celebrates MLKs birthday and each year commemorates the passage of the Civil Rights Act with nostalgic fervor?

HR3149: The Equal Employment for All Act, stalled in the House, would outlaw employment credit checks for all Americans and help to restore racial equality in hiring and promotions. Have you or your readers ever even heard of the legislation? Do you see or read about support for the legislation from the Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP, National Urban League, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton? With the exception of the NAACP’s weak support thus far, you won’t see any support whatsoever from the civil rights community because it doesn’t exist. As long as there is no “whites only need apply” sign in the window, the majority of the civil rights community appears to be blind to what quietly just happened in less than two decades.

Your readers and the African-American community at large deserve to know HR3149 exists so they can come together and support it. Without you reporting on it, that won’t happen. It also won’t enable your readers to ask difficult questions such as why there is virtually zero support from black leaders and civil rights advocates. Millions of dollars in corporate PAC money is buying votes and stalling the legislation in Congress which begs the question, could corporate money be muzzling some civil rights advocates as well? Something is clearly amiss . . . otherwise, HR3149 would be law. It’s just that simple!

During a time when unemployment is rampant in the African-American community, backdoor racial discrimination in the workplace via employment credit checks is killing what little opportunity there is. If Title VII of the Civil Rights Act were officially rescinded you’d write an article daily and call for mass protests, but backdoor racial discrimination via employment credit checks and no support for HR3149 from civil rights advocates is just fine? I ask that you perform your duty of informing your readers about HR3149 and to go the extra mile by reporting who is not supporting the legislation and ask the question, why?


[End Sample Letter]

Contact Points - We'll pick up this media outreach again, next week, so save your letters . . .

The Root
readerfeedback@theroot.com

Articles/submissions*
submissions@theroot.com

* Guidelines for submissions
http://www.theroot.com/contactus

Ebony/Jet
tglover@ebony.com

African American News & Issues
http://www.aframnews.com/websitepublisher/contact-us.html

Afro American Newspaper
editor@afro.com

editor@afro.com

Atlanta Daily World
publisher@atlantadailyworld.com

adwnews@atlantadailyworld.com

Atlanta Tribune
kmines@atlantatribune.com

kwhittaker@atlantatribune.com

Baltimore Times
btimes@btimes.com

Bay State Banner
mbm@b-banner.com

hmanly@bannerpub.com

Chicago Defender
mhouse@chicagodefender.com

lransom@chicagodefender.com

rgillespie@chicagodefender.com

Columbus Post
pthornton@ColumbusPost.com

Final Call
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/contactus/contactus.shtml

Ink News Online
editor@inknewsonline.com

Insight News
INFO@INSIGHTNEWS.COM

Jackson Advocate
jadvocat@aol.com

The Miami Times
scharite@miamitimesonline.com

Mississippi Link
publisher@mississippilink.com

editor@mississippilink.com

New England Informer
info@edofolks.com

neinformer@verizon.net

New Journal and Guide
njguid@gmail.com

New Pittsburg Courier
http://www.newpittsburghcourieronline.com/index.php?option=com_contact&view=contact&id=1&Itemid=84

People’s Voice Weekly
tonydmalone@yahoo.com

caclarkfrieson@msn.com

South Florida Times
http://www.sfltimes.com/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=3

Tennessee Tribune
editorial@thetennesseetribune.com

Tri-State Defender
editorial@tri-statedefender.com

Weekly Challenger
editor@theweeklychallenger.com

Weekly Press
Theweeklypress@yahoo.com

Westside Gazette
wgazette@bellsouth.net

Black Press USA
info@blackpressusa.com

2 comments:

  1. good. this is necessary. Sorta the Charles Dickens No-More-Jail-For-Debtors reality of our times; keep them poor and at home is the debt service of today. out of the public site, out of the public mind. Good work, here, to prevent that continuing.

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