ABSTRACT
The inadequacy of the media's representation of minorities has engendered a long history of public concern and debate. Mainstream media sources, typically White-owned and mostly White-staffed, have been repeatedly criticized for reporting events or dramatizing life from a predominantly White perspective. The limitations of the White-dominated media prompted people of color to create alternative media outlets where they could be assured of more representative and relevant content. An early example of this can be seen with the first American Black newspaper, Freedom's Journal, started by Samuel E. Cornish and John Brown Russwurm before the Civil War as an expression of abolitionist sentiment. In their first edition they wrote, “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the public been deceived by misrepresentation in things which concern us dearly” (Wilson & Gutiérrez, 1995,p. 181).
