Using Kid-Focused Ads in Urban Communities
Several studies have busted the myth that there are more fast food restaurants in Black communities than in white ones, but those same studies revealed that kid-focused advertising was more common in urban communities. Advertisements featuring popular athletes, child stars and cartoon characters were rampant in urban, low-income communities and appeared far more often than they did in high-income, white communities.
This election season, the stakes are higher than usual — and so is the pressure on newsrooms to soften their coverage, stay quiet, or just disappear. Independent reporting, the kind that answers to readers instead of advertisers or political pressure, matters more in a moment like this, not less.
For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed independent and reader-funded. We have no corporate owner and no shareholders telling us what to cover or how to cover it. That independence is also our biggest vulnerability: nothing protects it except readers choosing to fund it directly.
Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under in a moment like this, it's rarely the independent, reader-funded ones that get to stick around.
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