By: Regi Taylor
Monday, January 20, 2025, the date of his presidential swearing-in, will mark eight years to the day that Donald Trump first muttered his now infamous indictment that the news media was “the enemy of the American people.”
In the intervening years Trump has accused the press, or the ‘fake news” as he obnoxiously refers to them, for all his woes and failures simply because professional journalists had the temerity to report facts and findings.
However, before Donald Trump unleashed his scorn of the news media as the country’s official chief executive, he let his disdain towards reporters slip, while also putting his misogyny on full display, when during a post-presidential debate appearance on CNN with Don Lemon in August 2015, Trump described one of the debate hosts, Megyn Kelly, as “bleeding from her wherever.”
These dated descriptions are relevant today because they demonstrate that the crude, vulgar Donald Trump we see currently, the one who feigned ignorance of Kamala Harris’ racial identity and brutally berated African American female journalists during his NABJ appearance before them, has only worsened since eight years ago.
His bigotry and vindictiveness have metastasized to the point that he is terminally hateful.
His record of escalating bad behavior also tells us that the threats of retribution he’s made are to be taken extremely seriously. While many of us were distracted with his court jester routine, Trump’s minions were building the apparatus to achieve his nefarious press revenge tour. Two parts of the plot, if not vigorously pushed back on immediately, are hand in glove tactics with the potential to be the one-two punch that decimates journalism, Black and mainstream.
Ostensibly a response to protestors who showed empathy for innocent Palestinians victimized during Israel’s military response to the slaughter of civilian Israelis on October 7, 2023, by the evil Hamas regime, but redefined
in a propaganda campaign as Americans expressing support for Hamas, HR 9495 has a provision that allows the Treasury department, by fiat, to revoke the nonprofit status of “terrorist supporting organizations,” essentially without due process.
The definition of terrorist supporting organizations being arbitrary and subjective. Since there has been a near decade long program waged by Trump-MAGA to define Black Lives Matter as a terrorist organization, Black nonprofit news media beware.
In a matter of days, you could lose your non-for-profit designation for aiding and abetting ‘the enemy.’
On the other hand, the Supreme Court has indemnified Trump from quashing domestic protest using military troops, which he attempted during the national George Floyd protests, ordering General Mark Milley to have soldiers “crack their skulls, beat the f**k out of them,” or to “just shoot them,” which Milley refused and now finds himself publicly identified on Donald Trump’s official ‘enemies’ list, slated for prosecution and possibly the death penalty.
Former Trump White House aide and Heritage Foundation co-author of Project 2025, Mike Gonzalez, authored a 2021 book, BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution, and has made the rounds of MAGA media outlets, making the case to officially designate Black Lives Matter as a terrorist organization.
Donald Trump has referred to BLM as “terrorists, anarchists and thugs” at least since 2016.
Designating BLM as terrorists and creating a law to disqualify nonprofit outlets who support BLM is and has been part of the plan, part of Project 2025 for MAGA to take its country back.
Seeing this scheme on the horizon, publishers of prominent African American news media outlets were surveyed about how to now only circumvent the possibility of losing primary revenue streams, but how to expand the aging reader demographic to assure the longevity of the Black Press as an institution.
The survey was not scientific, but more akin to a straw poll to gauge what reasonable people would consider.
There were six general considerations:
• Grow readership base by recruiting community youth to participate in news gathering, curating and reporting.
• Combat illiteracy by partnering with school systems, publishing age-appropriate relevant content.
• Merge messaging with marketing, informing readers a glimpse of info they’ll find and how it may be useful.
• Introduce literacy programs in prisons, making ex-offenders’ thinkers, better informed, decreasing recidivism.
• Develop innovative advertising/promotion models to generate revenue that originates/circulates in core community.
• Become stronger, more welcoming interactive community resource, a virtual town square and digital meeting place.
Respondents were in near unanimous agreement on all these issues as ways to insulate the Black Press from tactics employed to dismantle and defang us as an institution as well as our at-large community.
Organized efforts to destabilize the Black Press threatens the destabilization of the Black Community.
Among the insights shared, Sonya Swanson, editor of the Garland Journal’s In and Around Town Newsletter, shared: “we must provide compelling and timely news stories that keep us engaged with the rest of the world. We need to publish news that impacts us but that may be [happening] outside of our direct community.”
Jenise Griffin, publisher and editor of the Daytona Times and Florida Courier sees the wisdom of expanding relationships with school districts but points out: “In Florida, there are controversial guidelines for teaching Black history,” reminding us what expanded, national MAGA educational policy will look like.
Regarding greater economic self-reliance, recirculating more dollars, more often at the community level, Jenise exclaimed: “I agree with this, and this is our primary focus for 2025.”
New Jersey Urban News publisher and CEO, Penda C. Howell, addresses the issue of tackling youth illiteracy head-on: “Newspapers In Education, (NIE) programs, can be established with custom content created as a part of the weekly English and History class curriculum. I’d be happy to participate in helping to make this happen, with funding.”
Cheryl Smith, publisher and editor at I Messenger Media LLC, offered these inspirational insights: “The Black Press is equally important and significant in building a better world, especially if those tasked with ‘pleading our own cause’ embrace their responsibility and fearlessly stir the pot, challenge the systems, speak for the voiceless and the muted voices, and break down the barriers that oppress, depress and repress the masses. We must meet the people where they are.”
The Black Press as an industry was born before the end of slavery, saw tremendous expansion and influence during Jim Crow, and has prospered ‘post’-Civil Rights.
As children of adversity African American journalists who were weaned during times of perpetual struggle are prepared to meet the challenge of those attempting to reimpose yesteryear’s conditions. First, we don’t have a choice. Second, we’re not going back.
Regi Taylor is a journalist, author, artist, and communications professional. The married father of four is a social commentator, earning citations in the U.S. Congressional Record. He’s authored three nonfiction biographical books.
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