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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (June 29, 2016)
Page 2 The Skanner June 29, 2016 Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Arashi Young Reporter Monica J. Foster Seattle Oice Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2016 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2016 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Paciic NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar RSS feeds Wishing all of our readers a happy and safe Independence Day Opinion Where Are the Black Mark Zuckerbergs and Latina Sheryl Sandbergs? T he question, which came from a participant in a minority business em- powerment seminar, qui- eted the room. The answer is simple: “They’re out there. But they don’t have a data plan.” That seems glib. But truth comes best in a simple pack- age. The digital divide is real. Millions of brilliant, creative thinkers are still let behind, because they don’t have afordable access to the Internet. So what can we do to change this paradigm? We can go mobile. Mobile technology has changed our world. Those of us who are already part of the mobile revolution know this innately: to be without our smartphones is to be iso- lated. It’s standing in a ield, watching the train lash by. It’s trying to ind a book in the dark when others are holding lashlights. But we’re not done yet — not until we’ve brought that change across the digital di- vide. We know what it means to be connected. And we know that to fully bring change, we Hill Harper NNPA Columnist have to bring that connection to the populations who today may not have access. Mobile tools don’t work when you can’t get to them. This issue matters more than ever because being “un- “ form or save a life. It means being stuck in the 20th cen- tury at a time when the 21st century economy is inally kicking into high gear. Imagine someone who isn’t connected or someone that has a mobile device, but can’t access more online data be- cause they exceeded their monthly allotment. For them, free data could be the key. Free data is an ofering that allows you to use more mobile content without having to worry about exceeding your Creators and innovators need ac- cess to the Web to connect with others and to expand their world connected” now means so much more than not having the chance to stream Netlix or send tweets. It means be- ing unable to access the myr- iad of business and entrepre- neurial opportunities that exist across today’s vibrant technological landscape. It means not having an on-ramp to healthcare and educational information that could trans- monthly data allotment. This leaves more data to use on other things like social media, and gives you the option of switching to a lower cost plan, if you have too much data let over, because the content you love is covered by free data program. It’s expanded op- portunity at no cost. If you see that you can watch an unlim- ited amount of video as part of a plan, then that might just be enough to entice you to cross the digital divide. And once online, you’ll inevitably use your mobile device to ex- plore the web, allowing your device to be the transforma- tive tool that it can be. Until we get people on- line, they may not know the resources on which they’ll build. Creators and innova- tors need access to the Web to connect with others and to expand their world. Indeed, our embrace of mobile inno- vations like streaming media and free data can serve as the light we use to illuminate the world around those who re- main in the digital dark. Dr. King’s vision of a “world-wide brotherhood” comes from those connections, those ties that grow a fully empowered and engaged community that refuses to let any more oppor- tunities pass us by. Our vigilance and advocacy will build the momentum we need to close the digital di- vide once and for all. Join me in this monumental task and be #MobileLikeMe. Saving Community Newspapers in the Age of Facebook H undreds of newspapers have disappeared in the last 15 years and read- ership is on the decline. No newspaper is immune from the migration of read- ership to online platforms, dwindling ad revenues, frag- mented audiences and even reduced attention spans. Even national-recognized newspapers with celebrated histories like “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post” have retrenched in the face of these mounting eco- nomic pressures. Many re- gional and community news- papers — including some members of the historic Black Press — are barely hanging on. The ramiications of this can be profound. Local publica- “ Denise Rolark- Barnes NNPA Chairperson Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. NNPA President and CEO and won’t be any time soon. Rather, it has just moved to an electronic form. Not only that, there are also more opportu- nities to tell more stories and express more opinions than Online hubs like Facebook are able to engineer which stories catch on tions have long served as the glue that binds communities together. They have served as the microphone for voices that would otherwise be mar- ginalized and the spotlight on the stories that seldom make it onto the front pages of major newspapers and magazines. For African-American com- munities, the publications that make up the National Newspaper Publishers Asso- ciation (NNPA) have served as that voice across the nation. Yet, we are being told that the silver lining is that jour- nalism isn’t disappearing — ever before. Some have said that we should not mourn the loss of the local newspaper and that we should instead ex- plore the myriad possibilities ofered by the new media. Or so goes the mantra. In reality, this upbeat vision obscures the threat that new media poses to community journalism. And that threat is coming from a most unlike- ly place — the popular social media platforms that so many of us love. Chief among them is Facebook. Like many other publishers who have recently written on Facebook’s growing pow- er over the media and what Americans read, we too are alarmed with one company having such dominance in news aggregation. Online hubs like Facebook are able to engineer which stories catch on. And they’re able to decide by algorithmic iat, which by- lines, viewpoints and subject matter is promoted to the masses. This is a new kind of pow- er. It is unlike any power a media company has ever had before. A study last year re- ported that Facebook drove 43 percent of all the traic to the top 400 news sites. That’s almost half coming from one powerful source! What’s more, we don’t know how Facebook’s operations work. The tech company isn’t transparent in its methods. So we don’t know whether the viewpoints of Black pub- lishers are heard or if there is a bias against our views. Without knowing how Face- book’s “Trending Topics” or other algorithms are used in promoting stories, the own- ers of Black-owned newspa- pers, magazines and other media are let only to wonder why the stories our outlets produce are relegated to the margins — if they are ac- knowledged at all. Our read- ers are at the mercy of powers unheard and unseen as never before. With 63 percent of Amer- icans and 74 percent of mil- lennials going to Facebook as their source of news, Face- book’s power is only likely to grow in the coming years. And there is something ironic about that. The mainstream media was once derided as unimaginative and monolith- ic, largely because it had long been dominated by three TV networks and a handful of newspapers in large cities. The Internet was supposed to change all that by bringing a diversity of viewpoints to the table. While this has indeed happened, the emergence of one or even a handful of powerful gatekeepers like Facebook raises profound questions about the nature of news in this country in the years to come. With so much power in the hands of one company, we risk surrendering our own deci- sions about what is or isn’t newsworthy to a gatekeeper who may someday push only stories it deems worthy. And that’s a troubling possibility that should worry us all. It is time regulators took a hard look at Facebook and its news aggregation and pro- motion practices in an efort to bring some much needed transparency to the new me- dia king. The democratization of the media could be on a col- lision course with decidedly anti-democratic and arbitrary forces. Think of the proverbi- al tree that falls silently in the forest because no one is there to hear it. Will Facebook have the power to allow entire for- ests to fall?
