Barnett was born on September 16, 1889 in Sanford, Florida. Growing up in poverty, Barnett worked to help his family make ends meet as a child. Barnett graduated from high school and was admitted to the Tuskegee Institute where he received an engineering degree in 1906.
Right out of school, Barnett landed a job as a postal clerk at the post office until 1915. It was during this time that Barnett noticed the need for news geared toward the African American community. Now inspired, Barnett took a job for the black newspaper, the Chicago Defender. For the paper, Barnett served as a traveling ad salesman, yet noticed that the paper lacked substantial news regarding the black community.
Four years later, Barnett created the Associated Negro Press (ANP) to provide a reliable stream of news stories regarding this specific community. Over the next decade and a half, Barnett served over two hundred subscribers across the country and even constructed a dependable team of black news reporters knowns as "stringers."
Charging $25 per week for access to the latest stories, Barnett's business grew to include over one hundred African American newspapers following World War II. During the war, Barnett's travels exposed him to the adverse effects of segregation in the armed forces as well as the segregation of blood supply. This motivated him, along with other black journalists to pressure the United States government to accredit black journalists as war correspondents and to campaign against the segregation of blood donations.
In addition to the war, the horrendous living conditions of black tenant farmers also caught Barnett's attention. He served as a consultant to the Secretary of Agriculture from 1942 to 1953 in order to improve their conditions.
Through his involvement in the African American community, Barnett was appointed governor of the American Red Cross, served on the board of directors for Chicago's Provident Hospital and the Supreme Life Insurance Company. He was even awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humanities Degree from Tuskegee Institute.
Although Barnett died 1967 of a cerebral hemorrhage, his legacy lives on not only as someone who tried to bring the African American community together, but also as a national civil rights leader who contributed to the "specialized" stage of newspaper history by founding the Associated Negro Press.
Sources:
Heywood Broun
ReplyDeleteBorn in Brooklyn, New York in 1888. He developed a very successful printing business in the city. Had well educated, wealthy parents. Attended a private school, Horace Mann. Decided he wanted to go into journalism when he was 14. He attended Harvard University in 1906 where he became friends with some other familiar folk, like John Reed and Walter Lippmann.
After college he found work at the New York Morning Telegraph reporting for sports. He loved baseball, and got to report on some of his favorite players. In 1912 he went to work for the New York Tribune, where he found his desire to be a foreign correspondent, much like Richard Harding Davis. His first foreign report was from Shanghai, on the new government.
Broun continued to be a sports reporter after that, until 1915, when he became a drama critic, impressed by the work of George Bernard Shaw and other playwrights. After Broun got married, however, he travelled again, this time with his wife and to France, to do some reporting on the first World War. Him and Ruth Hale both reported, him for the New York Tribune, and her for the Chicago Tribune.
Hale returned to the U.S. to give birth to their son, and Broun came back a month after. He published two books on the war he witnessed, The American Expeditionary Forces and America in the War: Our Army at the Front. Broun and Hale also became members of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of well rounded theatre journalists.
A significant contribution Broun made to journalism was his attack against the Ku Klux Klan, and William Jennings Bryan, a prominent politician who supported them. Unforunately, Broun was a sought after journalist … to be censored. Broun wasn’t going to allow this, full of ramboncous comments and the truth, so he terminated his contract.
Source: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbrounH.htm
As did many business men of his day, E.W. Scripps, or Edward Willis Scripps, went by his initials rather than his first and middle name. Born on June 18, 1854, in Rushville, Illinois, Scripps, starting as an office boy at The Detroit Press, his half-brother James’ newspaper, managed to work his way up the totem pole to become an extremely successful newspaper publisher.
ReplyDeleteAfter his stint as an office boy, with loans from James, Scripps went on to found The Penny Press in Cleveland, which managed to get the ball rolling for the aspiring newspaper owner. More family-provided financial support, this time from his half-sister Ellen, enabled Scripps to begin or acquire approximately 25 newspapers, thus marking the start of a media empire that is now the E.W. Scripps Company.
The influential entrepreneur from Illinois is also credited with founding the first major newspaper chain in the United States (Scripps-McRae, later Scripps-Howard, newspapers). In 1907, Scripps created the United Press Associations (which later became the United Press International) wire service, which he claims is his greatest gift to the American public.
Scripps is virtually a walking paradox -- commonly referred to as a man of many contradictions. While he was an outspoken social critic and advocate of the working people, Scripps lived a luxurious life as a wealthy press baron; he openly criticized the idea of monopolies, at the same time he was in the process of building an empire of newspapers.
A tough and ruthless nature are two traits every successful businessman must possess -- and Scripps did. Scripps fearlessness when it came to the business world inevitably made him a great risk-taker. Perhaps these essential characteristics is what urged Ohio University to name its famous, nationally-renowned school of journalism after Scripps himself (E.W. Scripps School of Journalism).