Weeklies’ Business Section Has Note of Pride as Well as News
Wave Newspapers Publisher and President C. Z. Wilson was thinking about advocacy as much as journalism last February when he introduced a business section into his group of black-owned community weeklies in Los Angeles. The section, one of the first financial sections to appear in any ethnic weekly, now averages four pages and includes guest writing from prominent minority business people.
“This is more a kind of advocacy and economic development interest,” said Wilson, a former UCLA vice chancellor and economics professor.
“I don’t believe we can do much in improving the status of minorities in this community until we improve their economic opportunities,” Wilson explained. And “if we don’t get enough advertising to make it economical, we’ll just take it on the chin for a while.”
One purpose, for instance, is “to get minority business people to read about themselves, about their own accomplishments and about others who achieved, often with limited resources, the stature they aspire to,” Wilson said.
Another purpose is “to encourage business people to view our community differently than they have in the past,” Wilson said.
In the last year, for instance, the Wave has attracted only one computer advertisement, even though the papers’ readership includes “a large upscale” community.
“We want advertisers to recognize that and start advertising in the media that will approach those markets,” Wilson said. “I believe that for American businesses to grow they must penetrate those markets that are hard to get to.” A third purpose is to act as a bridge between Wave readers, minority-businesses and larger business opportunities. Wilson hoped a recent story on light rail, for instance, would “encourage minority businesses to market more effectively for light rail.”
For now, free-lance writers and regular Wave staff reporters are writing the section. A group of 15 prominent minority business people also are advising and writing occasional pieces. Eventually Wilson hopes to hire a business editor and have the business leaders form a more formal advisory board. In addition to including the business pages inside the 257,000 papers the Wave usually sells each week, Wilson is mailing the business section to a select group of black managers and professionals who he hopes will become regular readers and advertisers.
The Wave, begun in the mid-1920s, includes 13 different editions circulated into three primary areas, the Westside aimed at “Anglos and Asians,” the Mid-City area aimed largely at black readers, and the East Los Angeles area aimed at a mix of black and Latino readers. In July, Wilson also hopes the paper will have its 8-month-old offset presses running smoothly enough to allow him to introduce color onto the paper’s cover.
Wilson, who led an investor group that purchased the paper in 1985, said Wave had roughly $8 million of revenue in 1985 and was profitable.
