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media professionals in senior positions at public television stations, such as Tamora Robinson, Juanita Anderson, George Miles, Kevin Harris, Don Marbury, Jennifer Lawson, Davis Lacy, and Bob Gore. Clyde Taylor and his partners facilitated the event and produced a stellar white paper which served as a blueprint for NBPC’s work over the next decade. Finally, in November 2006, following the resignation of Founding Director Mabel Haddock, NBPC’s new Director Jacquie Jones resolved
to usher the organization into the digital era. To facilitate this transition, BPM hosted a summit once more at WGBH in Boston where over 100 producers and public media executives gathered to plan the transition from analog to digital and determine the training and reorientation needed for producers, directors, and audiences alike.
The Black Media Story Summit convened in April 2018 was a natural outgrowth of this work and continued a proud tradition of community outreach and commitment to working with fellow cultural workers of color. As in previous decades, we
used the convening as an opportunity to identify funding and content priorities, acknowledge systemic challenges, and generate ideas for creating an eco-system that will allow Black content to grow and thrive. Yet, as outlined in the following section, there are some critical differences between the summits convened then and now, and many related to the critical changes in the media field itself. This Black Paper is intended to document our thinking around these changes, reflect on conversations at the summit, and lay out a plan of action for collective impact and systemic change. This will inform our institutional priorities over the next two years, as well as our next
steps in developing a formal collective of Black content creators, media professionals, and other stakeholders empowered to advocate for richer and more balanced representations of the Black experience.
REJUVENATING OUR PURPOSE AND MISSION 13
PURPOSE
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