Omaha Star underscores struggles faced by Black newspapers in U.S. [Video]

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – Newspapers across the country are losing advertising revenue to audio, visual, and digital media platforms, and the same is true for the nation’s Black-owned publications.

Those papers have survived for 197 years, but they’ve had to make adjustments to survive.

The Omaha Star is one of more than 200 Black-owned community newspapers in the U.S. The National Newspapers Association, the trade organization for the country’s Black newspapers, held its annual convention recently.

Omaha Star Publisher Terri Sanders attended the convention, where they discussed how Black newspapers — like seemingly all other papers around the country — are dwindling and suffering. They also brainstormed ways Black papers have to grow and advance beyond ink and papers.

“You have a print newspaper, great, do you also have a digital version?” Sanders said. “How are you interfacing with the digital world? Do you also have social media?”

Sanders told …