By E.R. Shipp
NABJ Black News & Views
Reprinted – by Texas Metro News
https://blacknewsandviews.com/
BALTIMORE — Garry Pierre-Pierre had been a reporter at The New York Times about seven years when it dawned on him that Haitians in the United States were evolving from exiles to immigrants.
“When my parents came in the 1960s, the plan was to lay low, wait out the dictator, then go back home. Thirty years later, everybody was still here. No one had been back. The situation hadn’t got that much better,” he recalled in a recent talk with journalism students at Morgan State University, an HBCU in Baltimore. They needed a means of communication that reflected their emerging status, he said.
“I thought, ‘Hey, you know. This might be a moment. Why don’t I bet on myself and do something crazy: leave The New York Times and start my own publication?”
He did and the paper thrived as a leading voice of the Haitian diaspora until, like thousands of newspapers, it fell victim to the shift of advertisers from print to digital media. Bowing to the new reality, The Haitian Times distributed its last print issue in 2012 and became an online publication with a growing presence on social media platforms. For a while, Pierre-Pierre was the full-time staff.
But Pierre-Pierre was able to take advantage of philanthropic purse strings that opened for small newspapers on the frontline in the battle to save democracy, the U.S. Census Bureau’s need to advertise with ethnic media to encourage participation in the 2020 census, and even New York City’s need to counter misinformation during the Covid pandemic by advertising in ethnic media. The paper, now celebrating 25 years of existence, is relying upon grants for its ambitious plan – months in the making — to cover the 2024 presidential campaign from an immigrant community’s perspective. The community? Not Miami, long a haven for Haitians, but Springfield, Ohio, which the paper has been monitoring for a couple of years.
The Wall Street Journal describes it as a place “in the middle of the middle of the U.S.” and “a community that had all the ingredients to be exploited in a close, fiercely fought national election.”
In the last few years, about 15,000 Haitians have settled in a town that had a population of 60,000 in 2020. Fleeing turmoil and poverty in their homeland, they have responded to a federal program created by Congress in 1990 to protect immigrants from countries deemed too dangerous. They’ve been recruited through initiatives designed to help municipalities fill jobs in economically-distressed areas.
The Wall Street Journal reported: “The local economy boomed. Business owners said they were grateful to have workers eager to work long shifts and do what it took to meet production goals. New subdivisions sprung up in the cornfields outside town. New restaurants opened. The Haitian flag flew at City Hall.”
But the influx of so many newcomers has strained services, especially the schools and the health care system, and served as a magnet for hate groups.
For The Haitian Times, things were on track. On Sept. 10, the news organization published a piece with the headline, “Ohio’s Haitian immigrant influx boosts economy, strains services and sparks social furor”. Then came Donald Trump’s big lie during a televised presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that evening in Philadelphia. Haitians, Trump said, were stealing and eating the pets of their American neighbors in Springfield. Haitians there and elsewhere in the country – and especially Pierre-Pierre, his staff and The Haitian Times – became targets for hatemongers and cyber mischief makers.
“My life was upended because the former president doubled down on that allegation,” Pierre-Pierre said a month into the storm.
Before the presidential debate, Pierre-Pierre had planned to moderate a community forum in Springfield to let Haitians air their concerns about life in their new hometown. In August, a neo-Nazi group had marched through the community demanding that Haitians leave. City officials said they were unable to protect participants, so the in-person forum became an online one. Extra security measures were taken to prevent trolls from disrupting the proceedings.
A couple of days later, the paper’s editor, Macollvie Neel, was the victim of a prank call that led carloads of cops to show up at her house thinking that someone had been murdered there. This is a phenomenon known as “swatting” – that is, knuckleheads who make the calls hope that police SWAT teams will arrive with guns blasting. Others have been victims of what’s known as “doxxing,” where miscreants post a person’s private address and phone number on the internet to prompt others to harass, or in some cases, assault the targeted person. A team from The Haitian Times was forced to relocate from Springfield to Columbus, 50 miles away, for their safety.
Under the headline “The Haitian Times covered the false claims targeting Springfield. Now it’s also facing attacks,” CNN’s account said in part: “Reports began pouring into the publication’s newsroom of Haitian immigrants receiving harassing phone calls and children and teens bullied. Parents were fearful to send their children to school. Dozens of bomb threats later shut down schools and municipal buildings in Springfield following Trump’s promotion of the false claims.”
Neel told CNN, “The message is pretty clear that they know where we live. They can get to us if they really want to. It’s just an intimidation, fascist tactic to silence people.”
The irony hardly escaped Pierre-Pierre, whose parents left Haiti with little Garry in tow as they sought opportunities in the United States that did not exist in their country. They were fleeing the corrupt 29-year reign of the Duvaliers – the late Papa Doc (Dr. François Duvalier) and his late son Baby Doc (Jean-Claude Duvalier).
“I left Haiti fleeing dictatorship,” Pierre-Pierre told the Morgan students, “but in the heartland of America, I couldn’t practice journalism.”
Professional journalism associations, philanthropic organizations, and colleagues are sponsoring efforts to “provide resources for virtual and digital safety and also our physical safety,” Pierre-Pierre said. Many people in Springfield and elsewhere in Ohio have gone out of their way to show support for Haitian businesses and for the newspaper whose mission is “Bridging the Gap.”
“We’re still in the throes of all of this, trying to figure it out,” Pierre-Pierre said.
In Springfield, the news is that some Haitians have left or are thinking of abandoning the city that they had seen as a promised land. The New York Times has reported that they have felt unwelcome and unsafe by the onslaught of haters that include the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and garden variety hecklers. They are also aware of Trump’s pledge to deport them if he is elected. “In the streets and stores, strangers have hurled insults at Haitians,” The New York Times reported on Oct. 11. “The tires on their cars have been slashed overnight. Some shoppers have meowed at Haitians in supermarket aisles, according to Haitians, community leaders and immigrant advocates.”
The Haitian Times will stick with Springfield. Pierre-Pierre foresees returning after the presidential election season to help Haitians and others in the area “navigate the cultural barriers.”
“We feel that after the elections we can go back to do that because that is important, because the Haitians are not going anywhere. Springfield needs them, and they need Springfield.”
He also plans to expand a printed bilingual newsletter launched a few months ago, open a Midwest bureau, strengthen the Florida bureau and provide more coverage in growing Haitian centers in Georgia, the Carolinas, Alabama, and Tennessee. All are potential Springfields, as the federal government has directed Haitians to jobs but, as Pierre-Pierre sees it, “did not provide municipalities with resources to fully integrate the needs of the new residents.”
Come January, Pierre-Pierre plans to do what he initially tried just before Covid struck: step down as publisher and turn over that job to Vania André, who will also retain her current editor-in-chief title.
“After that, I need a vacation after 25 years.”
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