November 11, 2025
Solely 4% of all media in the USA is owned by Black people, in accordance with a report.
Ashley Allison didn’t anticipate that the news of her firm, Watering Gap Media, buying The Root would create a lot buzz. For her, it wasn’t out of the atypical as a result of acquisitions “occur on a regular basis.”
Nevertheless, for the group, this was one thing important.
“The response to this deal has been large. It was overwhelmingly humbling,” Allison tells BLACK ENTERPRISE.
The response from others displays simply how uncommon Black possession in media has turn out to be. A report from NPR reveals that solely 4% of all media in the USA is owned by Black people. In the meantime, legacy media firms with verticals devoted to protection of Black communities gutted these departments and laid off workers.
Lately, NBC Information dissolved its devoted editorial crew for NBC BLK, a platform that launched in 2015 and targeted on telling tales about Black id, politics, and tradition. Teen Vogue and its writer, Condé Nast, have not too long ago come underneath hearth for layoffs that disproportionately affected Black individuals and other people of shade.
“Gone is the political-cultural criticism of the style and tradition industries by the Black ladies writers laid off in the present day,” The NewsGuild of New York wrote in an announcement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter concerning the layoffs. “As of in the present day, just one girl of shade stays on the editorial workers at Teen Vogue.”
Allison’s buy of The Root couldn’t have come at a extra dire time.
A Legacy Reclaimed
Since its launch in 2008 by Harvard College Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and former Washington Submit Firm chairman Donald E. Graham, The Root has been a trusted voice in Black information, id, and political discourse. Possession shifted in 2015 when Univision bought it from The Washington Submit Firm.
G/O Media bought Univision’s portfolio of on-line manufacturers, together with The Root, in 2019, earlier than Allison’s firm, Watering Gap Media, bought the publication for an undisclosed quantity this previous October. She is reportedly the first Black girl proprietor of The Root.
“I’ve all the time been a reader and an admirer of The Root … and it has all the time been part of my story,” Allison says.
When the chance offered itself to accumulate such a strong platform over the summer season, she knew immediately that: “That is it. No questions requested. Why wouldn’t we construct on the legacy that it has needed to date?”
A Imaginative and prescient for The Root’s Future
A research from Pew Analysis reveals that Black People are skeptical concerning the U.S. information media. The skepticism is rooted in long-standing issues about protection, illustration, and the media’s position in society.
Nearly two-thirds of Black adults, or 63%, say information about Black individuals is commonly extra damaging than information about different racial and ethnic teams. Greater than half (57%) say the information solely covers particular segments of Black communities and infrequently misses important data, and 43% mentioned the protection largely stereotypes Black individuals.
Allison says her purpose with The Root is to shut this hole.
“We need to inform the tales that may not make it in different publications or on different channels,” she says. “I believe we’re ready to try this with honesty, integrity, information, and information with a journalistic rigor.”
She plans to increase the digital attain and protection by investing in video and audio parts to fulfill individuals the place they’re. An estimated 54% of U.S. adults entry information by means of social media and video networks. There can be no scarcity of opinions, commentary, and conversations with individuals readers might not all the time agree with.
Allison is evident that The Root won’t platform individuals who trigger hurt to Black communities.
“There’s a rigor that I believe we must always be capable to have as Black individuals, to have a dialog and debate and nonetheless be capable to work collectively in group,” says Allison. “We’re additionally going to be asking of us what they need to hear all year long to actually get a way of the place our viewers is.”
A mean of 10 to fifteen million individuals devour The Root every month. In response to Allison, readers aren’t solely Black. One other purpose for Allison is to make sure that The Root supplies data for individuals who need to study extra concerning the Black expertise.
A Dream Deferred Is Not a Dream Denied
What many might not know is that Allison wrote down her goals of buying digital media properties in her journal in 2009. She envisoned it, then prayed about it, and waited.
Buying The Root is greater than a enterprise transfer. It’s future fulfilled. The Democratic strategist and former senior workers member within the Obama and Biden administrations urges anybody with a dream to push by means of, even when it feels unimaginable.
“The issues that we generally worry or really feel that nobody will assist, it’s usually the precise reverse,” she says. “My dream was to purchase media property, and I did it. Folks have been very receptive. You probably have a dream, attempt it, as a result of it’s in all probability been one thing all people has been ready for.”
RELATED CONTENT: Elevate Your Excellence: Ananda Lewis Remembered As The Luminous VJ Who Outlined A Era’s Voice
