Former Banner Editor and Publisher Melvin B. Miller with new owners Ron Mitchell (left) and Andre Stark (right) at the Banner’s Dorchester office.
Melvin Miller sells newspaper after 57 years of service
A younger but seasoned generation of journalists is leading the Bay State Banner into its second half century in the wake of its sale Feb. 28 to a new Black ownership team.
Melvin B. Miller, the founder, owner, editor and publisher of the influential Boston-based weekly for the last 57 years, sold the paper to a group headed by veteran WBZ-TV video journalist Ron Mitchell and filmmaker Andre Stark, who has produced news-magazine and documentary features for WGBH-TV, “Frontline,” and “Nova.”
Both Miller and the new ownership team declined to disclose the terms of the transaction, which was months in the making.
Miller, a Roxbury native who still lives on the same block where he grew up, said it was time to pass the pen to a new ownership and editorial team.
“I’m 88 years old and getting ready for the Maker,” said Miller, sitting beneath a framed photograph of crusading Boston journalist William Monroe Trotter in the paper’s Dorchester office.
“I’ve been looking for some time for someone to step up and take over the job. I think the Banner is needed more than ever. Both Ron and Andre are from old Roxbury families with deep ties to the community. They know the people, know the streets, know the issues we face. I have every confidence they will carry on the great work we’ve done for close to 60 years.”
Mitchell, 61, president and chief executive officer of the new ownership group Mitchell Stark Enterprises, will serve as publisher and editor of the Banner, the largest and oldest African-American newspaper in New England.
“I
grew up in Greater Boston. I’ve been part of the community fabric all
my life. I’ve been reading the Banner since I was a kid,” said Mitchell,
who resigned from WBZ-TV last week to prepare the first edition of the
paper under his watch.
“I
have enormous respect for the paper and what it has meant to the Black
community for close to six decades. Our goal is to preserve its role and
expand its future.”
The
nephew of former METCO director Jean McGuire, who served for many years
on the elected Boston School Committee, Mitchell has ties to the Miller
family going back generations. “Mel knew my grandfather, who was an
Episcopal minister, and the farm he owned in Canton. He knew my father
Michael Mitchell and my Aunt Jean when they were growing up.”
Like
Miller, Stark, 63, comes from a West Indian family long established in
Boston. “Mel took my Aunt Sylvia to the high school prom,” said the
filmmaker. “I went to Freedom House run by Otto and Muriel Snowden when I
was a kid and started reading the Banner back then.”
Stark
will serve as the paper’s full-time chief operating officer and focus
as well on producing video content for an expanded website and
shepharding new livestream news and public affairs features.
While
retaining its local character and concentration on quality news and
feature stories, the Banner will gradually undergo an expansion to three
other New England markets — north of Massachusetts, Connecticut and
Rhode Island — and go to print with some content exclusive to each of
the four planned editions, said Mitchell.
A
broad expansion of the paper’s on-line presence as a community and news
resource will be complemented by increasing print distribution in news
boxes in the Bay State as well in the other regional markets.
Pulitzer
Prize-winning former Boston Globe and WGBH editor Ken Cooper will work
as an editorial consultant to guide the expansion while long-time Banner
senior editor Yawu Miller — Mel Miller’s nephew — said he will stay on
to continue managing the paper’s Boston edition, he said.
The
print model of publishing a portion of unique content for different
markets has been used successfully by El Mundo, which publishes Boston,
Chelsea and Lawrence editions in Spanish.
An
aggressive expansion into the digital market at the Banner will be
guided by Colin Redd, 30, a Boston native who has served as a business
development manager for Blavity, The largest Black-owned media company
in the country, focused on supporting Black Millennials.
Debt
and equity financing for the deal came from Mill Cities Community
Investment, a Blackrun federally chartered community development
financial institution headed by Glynn Lloyd, former City Fresh Foods
founder and president, provided debt and equity financing for the deal.
“I
grew up reading the paper. Mel Miller and the Banner are iconic
institutions in Boston’s Black community,” said Lloyd, a Roxbury
resident who grew up in Sharon and helped establish the influential
Black Economic Council of Massachusetts.
“The
news and features are topnotch and have made our city and our region a
better place. There is an assault on truth in today’s world. Quality
journalism, especially quality journalism in service of our communities,
is more important than ever.”
Mitchell
credited Lloyd with making him aware that Miller might be receptive to
passing the torch. For his part, Lloyd cited investment support in Mill
Cities by the Boston Foundation — and guided by the group’s chief
operating officer Orlando Watkins – in making capital available for the
CDFI to support and nurture both emerging and mature businesses in the
Black community. He also credited guidance from Orlando Watkins, chief
operating officer of Mill Cities.
Mitchell also credits robust private investment from many prominent members of Greater Boston’s Black community.
Colette
Phillips, a publicist who has emerged as a key liaison between the
Boston business community and community enterprises, said she was
reassured to hear that the paper would remain in Black hands while
preserving its editorial independence. She noted that the sale comes as
many weekly and small daily newspapers across the country are either
folding or being hollowed out by private equity and hedge-fund buyers
who outsources editorial decision-making to out-ofstate journalistic
assembly lines.
“The important part of this is that we’re able to maintain the integrity of the Banner,” said Phillips.
“The
Banner has always been a strong voice and advocate for Black people in
Boston — politically, socially and economically — and with the
demographics of the city changing, attracting more Black people than
ever, we need a stronger Banner.”
The
Banner was launched in 1965 to fill a news void left by the folding of
the Guardian, the paper founded by Trotter, in the previous decade.
Miller and Otis Gates, Boston Latin School and Harvard College
classmates, started the paper in a small office on Warren Street in
Dudley Square, to provide coverage of struggles over busing, civil
rights, and urban renewal from the Black community’s perspective.
Miller,
a Columbia Law School graduate working as an Assistant U.S. Attorney,
left federal service to run the paper full-time after its faltering
first steps.
Among the
highlights of the paper’s publication history was the controversial
headline, “Police Riot in Grove Hall,” which appeared above a 1967 story
about Boston cops storming the welfare building in Roxbury and clubbing
protesting welfare mothers.
“That
story cemented the Banner’s reputation as a serious paper,” said
historian and former South End state Representative Byron Rushing. “It
took strong positions and stood up to the mainstream narrative. Not
everyone always agreed with Mel Miller, but no one questioned his
independence.”
Miller
said he wasn’t out to generate a fight with the police, City Hall or
other journalists who criticized the Banner for the story. “I just told
the truth,” said Miller. “That’s what we’ve always been about.”
Mitchell provided strong assurances that he intends to see the paper remain in Black hands in perpetuity.
“Andre
and I are from multigenerational Boston black families, and that’s who
we are and who we will always be,” Mitchell said. “We take our
responsibility to our community very seriously, and that’s reason Mel
sold the paper to us.”
Political
and media consultant Joyce Ferriabough said she had two schools of
thought about the sale. “I am so used to Mel Miller, who was not only an
editor but made things happen. He changed things,” she said.
“That
to me is the legacy —not just a newspaper but his advocacy for changing
the status quo,” she added. “Whether integrating the police, standing
up to apartheid and making Boston a global hub of resistance, preserving
the independence of Roxbury Community College or creating a Black
senate seat, his stands changed the tenor of the times for the better.”
But
Ferriabough said she knew the time was approaching for Miller to hand
over the journalistic torch. “I know and respect many of the members of
the new team and have confidence they will respect the traditions that
made the Banner a great paper under Mel,” she said.