The Black Commentator - Which is the Black Oriented Media?

John H. Johnson, founder of Ebony and Jet magazines, passed away this summer at age 87. Mr. Johnson’s death generated a wave of genuine praise for the pioneering publisher. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, a close Chicago friend of Mr. Johnson, said:

"The tallest tree in the history of African American journalism has fallen, but has fallen gracefully. The tree that stood tall for over 60 years and a tree that planted a forest, a tree with widespread limbs and full of fruit. He connected to Africa and African Americans. He shared the pain of Emmett Till, the development of Martin Luther King Jr., and was a source of information and inspiration. He was the number one black publisher for 60 years. His impact had been felt through the whole world of journalism."

The year 2005 has marked the passing of Rosa Parks, Constance Baker Motley, Vivian Malone Jones, and C. DeLores Tucker, as well as John H. Johnson. The loss of these icons has generated much angst about the "passing of the torch" to a new generation.

One who has already dropped that torch is Linda Johnson Rice, John H. Johnson’s daughter, and the current President and CEO of Johnson Publishing Company. Ms. Rice began working up the chain as fashion editor at Ebony in 1985-1987, and it shows. The awful truth is that Ebony has been A.W.O.L. on every big story in recent years – the big job discrimination cases at Texaco, Coca-Cola, and Wal-Mart; welfare "reform;" affirmative action; and the war in Iraq. In an interview Ms. Johnson Rice testily declared "We are not an investigative magazine…. We are a feature magazine. We are not here to pick apart African Americans. We are here to celebrate, and uplift, and inspire" (USC Trojan Family Magazine, Winter 2002).

Amidst all the Johnson/Ebony hagiography, Washington Post columnist, Amy Alexander, to her credit, was one of the few willing to admit she doesn’t pay much attention to Ebony. In a column titled "What's Not on My Coffee Table," Alexander wrote she had children’s books, a catalog, the New Yorker, and Harpers, but

"No Ebony or Jet on the table, or anywhere else in my house. No copies of Vibe, The Source, Black Enterprise or Essence, either. No, with our time for reading so limited by life's exigencies – also known as two children under 6 – our intake has been pared down in recent years to publications that meet a simple criterion: What do we need to know?"

Time, Newsweek, and National Geographic published cover stories on Hurricane Katrina. Evidently, Ebony editors think those "White oriented" magazines wrote all "we need to know," since the first issue after Katrina in our preeminent "Black oriented" magazine featured a glitzy cover with Denzel, Halle, and Jamie grinning and looking glamorous.

Hurricane Katrina and the criminally negligent (and yes, racist) response of government at all levels was one of the most shocking events in modern U.S. history – comparable to the September 11, 2001 attack. We’ve been told 9/11 "changed everything" but Katrina changed nothing at 820 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The December edition offers Beyonce Knowles with lots of cleavage looking simultaneously retro and sexy in lace. There is also a little "by the way" piece, "After the Hurricanes," with that patented "uplifting and inspiring" spin about "opening hearts and homes to the evacuees" (at least they didn’t say "refugees").

Unbelievable!

So it’s their 60th Anniversary? It will be their 60th anniversary year for twelve months. They could have pushed that junk off until December.

Some readers will blindly insist the "White" National Geographic is bad and the "Black" Ebony is good. Others will contrive some logic whereby Ebony editors are deemed "not really Black." Bull! For better or worse Ebony Magazine is an institution of Blacks, by Blacks, for Blacks. Serious journalism is expensive. Celebrity fluff is cheap. Linda Johnson Rice, like the Bush-era "Yuppie" Republican she is, has simply made a cold-blooded corporate decision to devolve Ebony’s classic mix of celebrity and journalism into celebrity fluff only.

Alex Walker has been a software engineer in New York, and Massachusetts before settling in Northern California’s Silicon Valley. While living and working in the Hudson Valley of New York he served as vice-president of the Northern Dutchess NAACP and co-chair of the Dutchess County Committee Against Racism in Poughkeepsie, New York. As a freelance writer he has contributed to The Poughkeepsie Journal and Taconic Newspapers in the Hudson Valley, the Somerville Journal and the Somerville Community News in Somerville, Massachusetts, and the Milpitas Post in Milpitas, California. He can be reached at [email protected].