By Ayesha Hana Shaji and Valerie Fields Hill
Staff Writer and News Editor
Texas Metro News
Journalist Roland Martin has stirred the pot, again.
This time the popular podcaster and host of the daily digital show, #RolandMartinUnfiltered, caused staunch disagreement among his own viewers over an accusation he made earlier this month.
The issue is still brewing or, rather, stewing.
On his March 1 show, Martin, who frequently touches some listeners’ nerves over issues of race and equity, accused some white-owned advertising agencies and their corporate clients of being systemically racist.
According to Martin, some ad agencies pay Black-owned media outlets pennies on the dollar when compared with the billions they spend with Esquire, GQ and other national publications.
During a two-hour “special report” that was streamed by more than 40,000 viewers and now can be watched on Martin’s own Black Star Network, YouTube and other digital platforms – the Houston native said, “Black owned media are being starved to death by corporate America and largely white ad agencies.”
“We’re talking about the hoops we have to jump through,” said Martin, referring to his own network and outlets owned by other Black executives, including Byron Allen, who owns, among other media, The Weather Channel; and Earl Graves, Jr. whose father founded Black Enterprise magazine.
In 2021, some companies, including Target, PepsiCo, T-Mobile, Discover, Nestle, No. 7 Beauty company, Door-Dash, General Mills, Adidas, WW, MGA Entertainment, and AARP, acknowledged the issue. The corporations agreed to spend at least two percent of their advertising budgets with Black-owned media to rectify the problem, they said in a June 8, 2021 news release. Martin questioned whether they had done so in the two years since they made the proclamation.
“All these companies have made commitments to spend with Black-owned media, and they’re claiming that they’re meeting or exceeding their goals,” Martin said on the show. “But, where’s our money? Something is not right here.” Meanwhile, some Dallas-based African American business executives- and Black media owners -agreed with Martin’s assessment.
Harrison Blair, president and CEO of the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce, said white corporate executives often misunderstand Black consumers’ buying decisions, their influence on product creation and their power in the market.
For example, he pointed to a recent cultural war between restaurants Chick-fil-A and Popeyes over the chicken sandwich, a product Blair said originated among Black cooks and diners. Yet, he complained, both restaurants continuously fail to significantly adver- tise to the very consumers who created and popularized that product.
“It’s a shame that there was a battle for the best chicken sandwich,” Blair said in an exclusive interview with Texas Metro News. “…Fried chicken is a staple of Black culture… It comes from the pain and anguish of slavery and having to take what you can get and turn it into something that is a cuisine.”
“Now, it’s in the culture, and everybody profits off that…except not… Black communities,” Blair said. “That’s just a vestige of them not feeling like they have to talk to you.”
“You are expected to purchase these big brands – and these big brands don’t necessarily feel loyalty to you.”
“…They don’t advertise to us,” Blair told Texas Metro News. “They don’t feel as though they need to advertise to us…” Martin expressed a similar sentiment.
“Corporations and ad agencies want you to keep buying their products, to keep driving their market share, but they in turn do not want to reciprocate and invest in Black-owned media, which is a place where you trust your information more than any place else,” he told his viewers.
The problem for Black-owned media, said Martin, a Texas A&M graduate who got his start reporting and writing news in Houston, Austin and Fort Worth, is not limited to corporations and privately-owned ad agencies.
The trend also is seen in federal government advertising expenditures. Citing a report by the federal government’s General Accounting Office, Martin said, the federal government spent $560 billion on contracts during a recent year. About $1 billion of that was spent annually in advertising.
“Black-owned media got $51 million out of the nearly $1 billion,” Martin said. “That means we are getting Biden and Harris to the White House and yet, the dollars are not coming back to Black-owned media.”
Cheryl Smith, publisher of Dallas-based I Messenger Media, which owns Texas Metro News, said not only are federal agencies not advertising with Black-owned media, but neither are many political candidates – Black, Latino, Asian, or Caucasian.
“I was in Birmingham talking to a sorority sister who was running for office,” Smith said this week. “I asked her if she was going to be advertising in the Birmingham Times? And she said, ‘Well, I hadn’t thought about it’.”
“I was like, ‘Well, you need to’.” Now keep in mind I was not asked to asked… to do that. I was not encouraged and was not getting any benefit out of it. The publisher of the Birmingham Times had no idea I was doing it. For me, it was the right thing to do. Raise a consciousness level.”
When you consider how consistently loyal the Black voter is, you would think that they wouldn’t be taken for granted like they are by the grocery chains that say “they’re going to shop anyway,” or the car dealers that say “we don’t have to advertise to Blacks because we know they are going to buy cars, whether we advertise or not.”
To remedy the problem, Black media executives must continue to elevate the issue, as Martin has, in the public consciousness, said Smith, adding that even the Biden administration has paid attention to the disparity.
Still, some of Martin’s viewers boiled over at the premise that an unfair proportion of advertising dollars were not being spent with Black-owned media. “Why do you race bait,” wrote viewer Kowaiski Critton, during Martin’s broadcast.
Another viewer, Dave Pirtle, questioned the magnitude of the problem, during the March 1, broadcast.
“Although he is a polarizing figure, I wish Roland would speak with Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks,” Pirtle wrote. “Almost all of the top executives are Black. Talk about putting your money where your mouth is.”
According to Smith, Cuban is an exception, not the rule. “There’s a consciousness and business sense, as well as commitment, that Mr. Cuban and Mavs CEO Cynt Marshall have that many don’t.”
In a second post, Pirtle called the problem “unbelievable.”
“I am trying to understand how these ad companies could justify paying almost 90% less to Black media companies without being outright called racist,” he wrote.
“What that means is the same Coke ad on BET, for example, was let’s say $100 and the same exact ad on TNT was $900. Unbelievable.”
