Being plugged into the internet is vital in the 21st Century, but for those who need it most — whether for doing homework or looking for a job — the connection they need to survive and thrive is often too expensive.
On Thursday afternoon, the FCC voted to expand the Lifeline subsidy, a program that some say may help low-income families paying for phone plans, to include broadband.
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We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.
Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.
The wider picture isn't any steadier. 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, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.
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