black journalists
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Read, Write, Revolt: The Root Launches the It's Lit! Podcast With Inaugural Guest Nikole Hannah-Jones
Autumn has only just begun, but 2020 has already been a study in contrasts: Some of us have taken to the streets, but even more of us spent an unprecedented amount of our time at home this year. Our discourse has unimaginably become even more divided, but we are holding our loved ones and ideals…
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Black Kenosha News Editor Resigns Over Jacob Blake Rally Coverage
Editor Daniel Thompson wasn’t covering the Saturday rally for Jacob Blake but attended it anyway. The 30-year-old digital editor of the Kenosha News watched as speaker after speaker took the stage: among them were Jacob Blake’s uncle, Justine Blake, Wisconsin Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, Rep. Gwen Moore, local activist Ma’kia Hughes and national organizer Dijuan…
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'Why Is This Time Different?': Ta-Nehisi Coates to Guest-Edit Vanity Fair's September Issue on Art, Activism and Power
Ta-Nehisi Coates, the acclaimed author of the National Book Award-winning Between the World and Me, is helping Vanity Fair interpret the world we unexpectedly find ourselves living in now. On Tuesday, the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Radhika Jones announced that Coates is the guest editor of the September issue, “a special edition exploring art, activism, and power…
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'Representation Matters': Vanity Fair's Samira Nasr Becomes the 1st Black Editor-in-Chief of Harper's Bazaar
If the world at large is struggling with its response to the outcry that black lives matter, so, too, is the fashion industry—much of which, in the words of one fashion editor to The Glow Up, has quite obviously been “scrambling” to show solidarity in recent weeks. The lack of both preparedness and representation within…
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Solidarity Is in Style—but Is Fashion Media Really Ready to Reckon With Its Race Problem?
Though we’ve long known it to be true, in some ways “Black Lives Matter” has suddenly become the little black dress of the fashion industry: the oft-forgotten yet indispensable and unfailingly stylish way to show solidarity in a moment of global outrage. One need look no further than the spate of daily newsletters sent by…
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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Bars Black Reporters From Covering Protests, Citing 'Bias'
Black journalists working at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette say they are being cut off from doing their job during one of the most pivotal news-making events in history—the ongoing protests for racial justice—on accusations that they are biased. The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh says a number of black journalists have been barred from doing protest-related stories…
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A Letter Not From a Birmingham Jail
“If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and…
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They Need Us: MSNBC’s Trymaine Lee on Black Journalists and Holding America to Its Ideals
“They need us. They need us as black journalists. They need us as journalists. They need us to push and push to tell the truth, because as we know, there are powers and influences in this country that would rather the truth not be told.” —Trymaine Lee, MSNBC correspondent text Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning…
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Do You Have What It Takes to Write for The Root?
The Root is looking for freelance writers to cover nights and weekends. Do you fit the description? About the Role: We are looking for sharp writers with strong voices and keen eyes for great stories that speak to the intersection of blackness and culture, politics, entertainment, and sports, among other pertinent issues. We need you…
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#FreeMumia: Former Journalist and Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal Gets Another Chance to Appeal in Cop Murder
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Philadelphia radio journalist convicted and imprisoned almost 40 years for the 1981 murder of a police officer, has the chance to appeal anew for a new trial now that the city district attorney has dropped his objections to it. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner on Wednesday dropped his objections to a…