Introducing The Bison ONE Newsroom, A NewsOne And HU Collab

Now, just as it has been during all consequential periods throughout this nation’s history, it is critical that Black journalists committed to excavating intersectional truths and holding them up to the light are supported and platformed. But that isn’t what is happening in mainstream media, nor has it ever fully been. Instead, our voices are suppressed, distorted, and criminalized, while Artificial Intelligence dominates the media landscape and misinformation and disinformation continue to be unleashed.

Let there be no mistake: The United States of America, as a white settler colonial project rooted in land theft, slavery, genocide, and rape, is unraveling at the seams. And those seams, sewn with injustice and interwoven with hate, are being stretched in ways that are unsustainable. Some people may find it comforting to blame all of this on the authoritarian, fascist regime currently occupying the White House, as well as a growing number of cities across the country occupied by Donald Trump’s militarized forces; but we did not arrive here by happenstance, nor as the result of one presidential election. Black people and other targeted communities are not shocked by these travesties even as we brace against the brazenness of the malevolent political actors enforcing them. Why?

Because this nation’s past is its prologue.

How, then, does one curate an unflinching truth about a country that has lied about the depth and quality of its character since its inception? As I’ve said previously, you begin by rooting the work in the tradition of the Black journalists who have come before, such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who taught us through her work at the Memphis Free Speech and beyond, to be both righteous and rigorous. You think of the Freedom’s Journal and the Woman’s Era, of the Chicago Defender and the New York Amsterdam News, of the Los Angeles Sentinel and Negro World.

You think of all the Black journalists who have risked their lives to tell the truth.

“Having lost my paper, had a price put on my life, and been made an exile from home for hinting at the truth, I felt I owed it to myself and to my race to tell the whole truth.” —

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

In service to that mission, I have long nurtured a vision of paving the way for young, Black journalists—the truth-tellers and cultural curators of our time—just as others have paved the way for me.

Today, I am proud to announce the launch of the Bison ONE Newsroom, NewsOne’s exclusive partnership with student journalists under the tutelage of renowned, award-winning journalist, author, and professor Dr. Stacey Patton at Howard University’s Cathy Hughes School of Communications, named for the Founder & Chairperson of Urban One, NewsOne’s parent company and the largest Black-owned media company in the United States.

Expanding on our iONE Digital NewsOne x Bison 2024 Election coverage, the Bison ONE Newsroom is a groundbreaking, first-of-its-kind partnership between a national media corporation and an HBCU journalism program—a partnership that honors the power of HBCUs as incubators of cultural and political transformation.

Blending in-depth journalism, real-time coverage, and heartfelt storytelling, this multi-media experience will serve as a pioneering blueprint for how narratives that attempt to obscure the humanity of Black people can be disrupted when Black institutions stand together and create something innovative, something lasting, something that is ours.

Join us in celebrating and supporting these student leaders as they join the sacred tradition of Black journalism. Absorb their words and videos; respect their perspectives; listen to their hearts. Though times are perilous, and the road ahead treacherous, we have always had each other. We may face hate, but we still love. We may encounter lies, but our truths are unbreakable. Those in power may attempt to intimidate us into silence, but they can never imprison our thoughts, nor incarcerate our voices—voices that echo generations of freedom fighters who have come before and breathe life into all those who will come after.

Because this is what legacy looks like—what resistance, revolution, and audacious, Black brilliance looks like. As our collective futures unfold, NewsOne is honored to pass the mic to emerging journalists who will shape the ways in which history will remember this urgent moment. We are the authors of our own stories.

Let it be written.

In solidarity,

Kirsten West Savali, Vice President of Content, iONE Digital

SEE ALSO:

Cathy Hughes Talks Howard U, Election

NewsOne Partners With Howard U For Election Day

NewsOne And Howard University’s Cathy Hughes School Of Communications Launch Groundbreaking Media Partnership  was originally published on newsone.com