NOVEMBER 19, 2024
BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA
WEEKLY DISPATCH
By Leslie Fields-Cruz
This week, I and several of my BPM colleagues are in Lincoln, Neb., for the first ever joint staff convening of the National Multicultural Alliance. Member organizations — Vision Maker Media, Black Public Media, the Center for Asian American Media, and Pacific Islanders in Communications — have spent decades elevating and celebrating voices and stories from our respective communities, often in partnership with our colleagues in public media.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting granted our request to meet as a group to discuss the future of our respective institutions and how we might increase our collaborative impact. Shout out to my colleagues: Francine Blythe-Lewis, Stephen Gong, Cheryl Harissa, and Sandie Pedlow. As the exective directors of NMCA organizations, we worked together to propose this gathering. Thanks, too, to Vision Maker Media for serving as our host here in the heartland of the United States.
We all see tremendous opportunities for independent media storytellers in our respective communities to enrich Americans’ understanding of the nation we all inhabit and cherish. We also recognize that some of our fellow Americans view this as an opportunity to silence those voices. We’re not gonna let that happen!
By becoming even more strategic about how we work together, how we cultivate talent, and how we engage audiences, partners, and funders, we aim to ensure the content that gets elevated from our communities not only looks back at our past, but focuses acutely on how we’re helping shape America’s future.
Success at Torrents in DC
I’m pleased to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who attended Black Public Media’s events at this year’s edition of Torrents: New Links to Black Futures in Washington, D.C., last weekend. Your presence, energy, and engagement made these events an unforgettable celebration of creativity, innovation and storytelling.
We are deeply grateful to our talented presenters, collaborators and attendees who came together to champion Black excellence in media and technology. Your support fuels our mission to uplift and amplify underrepresented voices.
BPM Wins Another Anthem Award
I’m delighted to announce that BPM has won yet another Anthem Award! This, our fourth consecutive one, is given in recognition of our most recent BE HEARD social media campaign: #ShopLikeNana. Congratulations to Director Sophia Clark, Producer Inuka Bacote-Capiga, BPM Social Media Manager Kat Walsh, BPM Program Coordinator Carol Bash, BPM Program Director Denise Greene, #ShopLikeNana Host Katrina Davis, #ShopLikeNana Reporter Sean Watkins, our three social media EcoStylers: Imani Barbarin, Bailey Bass and Summer Dean, and everyone else who either helped make the campaign or shared it with their network of friends, co-workers and family members. The Anthem Silver Award-winning campaign is designed to raise consumer awareness of the environmental damage fast fashion is having on our planet. It also promotes the personal, economic and environmental benefits of upcycling vintage and gently used clothing. Special thanks to our #ShopLikeNana corporate sponsor Paramount+ for funding the project. Together, we are working to raise awareness.
Banner image by Darlene Sheiner
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BPM is supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with further funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts. BPM is the only nonprofit that offers training, funding and distribution for projects solely about the Black experience. We welcome foundations, corporations and individuals to help with our work. For more information about underwriting and contributions, contact Delynda Lindsey (delynda@blackpublicmedia.org).