Glen Ford

Executive editor of Black Agenda Report.com, a weekly journal of African American political thought and action.

Historically, vibrant black news media serving African-American communities in the U.S. have played a vital role in black political struggles.  Black news media had provided space through which the black community has been able to examine and dialogue with itself, stay informed, and nurture community life.  With the increasing consolidation and privatization of media, there has been a dramatic decline of black news media masked by the growth of talk radio. What are the implications of this privatization on black political life? How has corporate media—even when black-owned—targeted the black community specifically as a "market”? And what struggles are going on now to increase black community-determined media and public space?  Glen Ford, Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report, will discuss these and other questions.

About the Speaker:

Glen Ford is executive editor of Black Agenda Report.com, a weekly journal of African American political thought and action. He has extensive experience in radio and television, where he launched influential programming like America's Black Forum, the first nationally syndicated Black news interview program on commercial television, and Rap It Up. Ford co-founded BlackCommentator.com (BC) in 2002. The weekly journal quickly became the most influential Black political site on the Net. In October 2006, Ford and others left BC to launch BlackAgendaReport.com.

In addition to his broadcast and Internet experience, Glen Ford was national political columnist for Encore American & Worldwide News magazine; founded The Black Commentator and Africana Policies magazines; authored The Big Lie: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of the Grenada Invasion (IOJ, 1985); and served as reporter and editor for three newspapers (two daily, one weekly).