I’m writing this from Charleston, S.C., at the AAN Publishers conference. What was originally known as the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies was founded as an organization in 1978 for print newspapers that served as an alternative news source to the usual daily newspapers and mainstream media that often did not tell the whole story. (Sound familiar?)
These days, we’re simply known as AAN Publishers, with many of us serving as at least one paper of record for our towns or states. From the start, membership in AAN has been competitive with a high quality of writing and reporting often not found in other news sources a key reason for being allowed to join the organization.
I love AAN. I didn’t always. For years as the associate publisher of the Jackson Free Press—an “alt weekly” of the highest quality—I was often the only Black person at AAN conferences. I live in the Blackest state in the nation; 36% of Mississippi identifies as someone of African descent, so it weirds me out when there aren’t at least a handful of Black, Brown or beige people in the room.
I stopped attending AAN conferences in 2013 until my friend and colleague John Heaston, who passed away recently, pulled me back into the fray in 2020 with Donna Ladd’s urging of me as a board member. Upon my return, I found changes afoot. There were incredibly earnest people pushing for diversity and inclusivity, more young people like Sayaka Matsuoka, managing editor of Triad City Beat in North Carolina, asking hard questions and joining the leadership track, and many papers had transitioned to digital-first newsrooms. At the same time, some had become or were transitioning to a nonprofit model.
Yesterday, our MFP team kicked off the conference with one of our signature Solutions Circles for conference attendees to brainstorm problems and solutions for journalism. Donna Ladd set the ground rules and lightly led us while Culture Reporter Aliyah Veal, General Assignment Reporter Heather Harrison and I helped out by mostly listening, keeping people on task and urging them to pass the talking sticks.
After splitting into quadrants on different topics—revenue, journalism, operations and audience engagement—we talked about problems attendees brought up half the time and then solutions half the time just like we do in community circles across Mississippi.
What I love about these circles—the ones we have around Mississippi; the ones in our newsroom with our staff and the Youth Media Project; and the one we had here at the conference—is that they give people hope. Most members of any community can agree on what’s wrong, I find. The cracks in our families, newsrooms, or just about any group of people are so apparent because they affect our ability to do the work we’re tasked with accomplishing.
We as community and newsroom members often aren’t asked to share the solutions we’ve implemented, or that would work if we had more resources. So challenges can send us into despair as we forget our strengths (in the AAN world that includes fantastic narrative writing and investigative reporting; events and calendars to connect community; and how to sell advertising).
As we left the 90-minute session through doors then covered with large stickies of problems and solutions we generated, the halls were bustling with energy. People took away ideas from colleagues who were dealing with the same problems and talking about how they could take the circles back to their newsrooms and communities as we do at the Mississippi Free Press.
Look at the headlines. Right now, most mainstream media has abdicated its responsibility to everyday Americans. I’m looking at you, New York Times, as you are bound and determined to present us with a false-equivalence political narrative that centers white men. It’s infuriating, but as Mr. Rogers said, “Look for the helpers.” (If you don’t know who Mr. Rogers is, please email me because there are several rap beefs I need you to explain.)
For journalism, I think that means turning your back on a lot of corporate media. Let’s face it, they turned their back on us a long time ago with unreasonable paywalls, buying up hundreds of local papers and then gutting them for the sake of “profit,” then replacing them with products that have little connection to our everyday lives.
Like us, a lot of media helpers are at AAN. These independent newsrooms serve their communities, many of them challenged and divided American cities, beyond national narratives created by people who don’t understand why I may take you to a gas station for the best food in a small Mississippi town. The truth is, despite what you’ve heard, there are lots of bright lights in media like Open Vallejo, which covers police and policing with tough investigations, to the Baltimore Beat, a new AAN member that distributes to underserved Black communities there with print editions whose covers remind me of pieces from an art gallery. And of course, our newsroom—Mississippi’s most inclusive—is covering both local and national topics during this critical election season in a way that knows you’re smart enough to make good decisions for yourself.
So, this weekend, I encourage you to tune out media that do not serve us. Look for the helpers. We can identify and solve community challenges together.
