Scott Newspaper Syndicate
The Scott Newspaper Syndicate (originally the Southern Newspaper Syndicate) was a conglomeration or chain of African-American newspapers. It existed between 1931 and 1955, and at its height, it employed hundreds of workers and contributed to more than 240 papers.
Origins
[edit]William Alexander Scott Jr founded the Atlanta World in 1928.[1] The paper first published every week, but after two years, it was converted into a semiweekly publication.[1] Scott began a print syndication business (or newspaper chain) called the Southern Newspaper Syndicate on January 1, 1931,[2] which he renamed the Scott Newspaper Syndicate in 1933.[3] He intended for his syndication of small, black newspapers, to reduce the overhead cost of publication; in return, the papers would add stories from the Atlanta World to their issues.[4] Initial publication costs were $13 for 200 copies of a standard small newspaper.[5]
Acquisitions and syndication
[edit]At its height, the Scott Newspaper Syndicate employed around 50 full-time workers and 500 part-time workers to prepare newspapers for publication,[6] including journalists Frank Marshall Davis, Robert E. Johnson, and Lerone Bennett Jr.[7] During and following World War II, many African Americans left the Southern United States for the American Southwest and Midwest (a period known as the Second Great Migration); the syndication began publishing in locations like Phoenix, Arizona, and Michigan.[8] Members of the syndication largely did not participate in the Double V campaign – the agitation for democracy domestically (for African Americans) and internationally (to oppose leaders like Adolf Hitler) – because it was started by newspapers outside of the chain, such as the Pittsburgh Courier.[9] While its newspapers denounced discrimination within the military, their objections were careful and did not promote disobedience.[10]
Other black newspapers in the early 20th century also created syndicates, including the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier, and the Baltimore Afro-American.[11]
List of partnered papers
[edit]Over 240 papers belonged to the syndication at its height.[12] Papers belonging to the syndicate, at least for a time, included the following:[13]
- Alabama Tribune
- Bayou State Register
- Birmingham World
- Chattanooga Tribune
- Galveston Examiner
- Indianapolis Recorder
- Jackson Advocate
- Jackson Times
- Lighthouse and Informer
- Louisville Independent News
- Memphis World
- Omaha Chronicle
- St. Louis Argus
Demise and legacy
[edit]In 1949, the Atlanta World was sued for libel in Georgia, and though the suit was dropped, syndicated newspapers altered their reporting under the confines of a strict Georgian defamation law.[14]
Following the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954, many smaller black newspapers were under financial pressure from white advertisers, but the Atlanta World remained relatively successful.[15] Because of logistical difficulties, the syndicate closed in 1955.[16] At the time of its closure, it operated ten newspapers.[17]
Scholar Thomas Aiello writes that the Scott Newspaper Syndicate was an important precursor to the civil rights movement which "formaliz[ed] news coverage across a region dominated by Jim Crow" and developed "a unity of thought among black southerners".[18]
References
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ^ a b Aiello 2018, p. 1.
- ^ Teel 1989, p. 170.
- ^ Aiello 2018, pp. 1, 110.
- ^ Aiello 2018, pp. 23, 31.
- ^ Aiello 2018, p. 37.
- ^ Aiello 2018, p. 30.
- ^ Teel 1989, p. 178.
- ^ Aiello 2018, p. 108.
- ^ Aiello 2018, pp. 110, 116.
- ^ Aiello 2018, pp. 116–117.
- ^ Aiello 2014, p. 200.
- ^ Carroll 2022, p. 163.
- ^ Aiello 2018, pp. 7–8, 23–24, 38, 83, 104, 124, 187, 198.
- ^ Aiello 2018, p. 165–166.
- ^ Aiello 2018, p. 173.
- ^ Aiello 2018, p. 185.
- ^ Aiello 2018, p. 186.
- ^ Aiello 2014, p. 201.
Works cited
[edit]- Aiello, Thomas (2014). "Violently amorous: The Jackson Advocate, the Atlanta Daily World, and the limits of syndication". Journal of Mississippi History. 76 (3/4): 183–201. SSRN 3755022.
- Aiello, Thomas (2018). The grapevine of the South: The Scott Newspaper Syndicate in the generation before the civil rights movement. Print Culture in the South. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 9780820354477.
- Carroll, Brian (2022). "Darktown: Newspaper coverage of Atlanta's first black police, 1930–1960". American Journalism. 39 (2): 142–168. doi:10.1080/08821127.2022.2064363.
- Teel, Leonard Ray (1989). "W. A. Scott and the Atlanta World". American Journalism. 6 (3): 158–178. doi:10.1080/08821127.1989.10731195.
Further reading
[edit]- Aiello, Thomas (2023). Practical radicalism and the Great Migration: The cultural geography of the Scott Newspaper Syndicate. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 9780820362861.