The Negro Press: 1955

When Ebony, a picture magazine for Negroes, first went on sale in 1945, it was without a shred of advertising, sold less than 25,000 copies. Last week Ebony was celebrating its tenth anniversary with a bulky 180-page issue crammed with $186,-ooo worth of ads and an estimated circu lation of 506,000 (including readers in 15 foreign countries). This week the success of Ebony, which "emphasizes the positive and minimizes the negative" of race relations, will be the focal point of a Voice of America report on the U.S. Negro's progress.

Chicago Publisher John H. Johnson (TIME, Oct. 23, 1950), who has launched three other money-making magazines, Jet, Tan and Hue, in Ebony's wake, has had to weather some major setbacks. Ebony, flourishing at first on a spicy diet of sex and sensation, dropped 100,000 circulation last year. Publisher Johnson, 37, countered with a drive for home subscribers, dropped cheesecake and gossip for more serious reporting of Negroes in the news, and won back his readers. Johnson learned the hard way that the new-style Ebony is more in tune with its readers' interests. Says he: "The Negro press has depended too much on emotion and racial pride. Negroes have grown out of that."

Circulation Trouble. Ebony's bright prospects are not reflected by the Negro press as a whole. Most other Negro editors have been slow to learn that in an era of rapid progress toward full social, economic and political citizenship, the Negro is fast losing his interest in editorial policies largely based on racial protest and sensational handling of news. Moreover, the white press is doing a more thorough job of covering Negro news, e.g., the Washington Post and Times Herald and the New York Herald Tribune have even carried stories about Negro activities on their society pages. As a result, most Negro publications are having circulation and other problems.

In Chicago the fire-breathing, 50-year-old weekly Defender has lost 10,000 local readers in the past three years, is down to 49,000 in a city of 700,000 Negroes. Its national edition has dropped to 37,000, about half its 1952 circulation. New York's Amsterdam News has dropped more than 25,000 from its 1947 peak of 62,770. The weekly Afro-American, which publishes 13 local and regional editions, including twice-weekly editions in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., has dropped from 230,000 to 188,000 in national circulation since World War II, may have to drop some of its editions, e.g., in New England, to concentrate on metropolitan areas with heavy Negro populations. Some

Negro papers, such as the Pittsburgh Courier, biggest local Negro weekly in the U.S., are switching to tabloid form and a broader news policy in an attempt to regain circulation (the Courier has plummeted to a little more than half its 1948 peak of 358,000). While some Negro publishers still make a fat living, they generally lack capital to modernize plants and beef up skimpy staffs.

Losing Battle. Most Negro magazines are also waging a losing battle since they tend to appeal to the reader as a Negro first, and only secondarily as a member of the larger community in which he is rapidly winning a place. For example, Our World, one of the glossiest Negro magazines, has frequently featured articles on Negro life in Africa and other parts of the world. Last week, after dropping nearly 100,000 circulation since its 1952 peak of 251,599, Our World Publishing Co. went bankrupt.

To survive, Negro publications may have to follow the example of Ebony and Atlanta's Daily World, the only Negro daily in the U.S. The World has prospered by consistently giving its 17,000 weekday readers full, even-tempered news coverage. This year it has a 45% advertising gain over 1954. Says the World's Managing Editor William Gordon, 36, a 1952 Harvard Nieman fellow: "We aren't in business just to fight for racial equality. The Negro today wants to be well and accurately informed. With desegregation. I can see no decline in the need for a Negro press."

On the other hand, many Negro newsmen feel that rising living and educational standards will continue to lessen the demand for a Negro press. But few of them believe that the Negro's interests will be wholly integrated with those of the white man for at least another half-century. Says Ebony's Johnson: "When that happens we'll gladly go out of business."

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