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?
