- Sterling K. Brown makes history again. At this year’s SAG Award, Brown became the first Black actor to win ‘Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series.’
- Ciara gets blasted for a video she posted on Instagram about marriage. With the caption “#Levelup. Don’t Settle,” The video spoke to women who want to be married but “walking in the spirit of a girlfriend.” People were offended that she might have been connecting self-worth to being married.
- Rapper Fredo Santana, the cousin of rapper Chief Keef, died from a seizure. He passed away at the young age of 27. According to TMZ, he was recently hospitalized for liver and kidney failure.
- Cardi B defends her fiance Offset for the alleged homophobic lyric, “I cannot vibe with queers”. Cardi B says her fiancé treats everyone with the same amount of respect.
- The Senate will vote at noon Monday, Jan. 22 on a bill to reopen the government. It’s still unclear if this vote will win over Democrats.
Democracy needs journalism it can trust.
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.
We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.
If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.
Related Stories
