I started writing for journals and magazines back in the ’90s. My earliest journal writing started in Brooklyn, with two Black-owned and helmed magazines: NEW WORD MAGAZINE created by Garrett Fortner (yes, I did a little modeling for it, and yes, that’s me, many moons ago), and SHADE MAGAZINE, created by Sheryl Huggins.
In 2011, I started writing and editing for another Black-led publication, HOPE for WOMEN Magazine, created by Angelia White.
In 2018, I started writing for The Weekly Challenger Newspaper, a community paper in Pinellas County, Florida.
From the paper:
When Cleveland Johnson, Jr. started The Weekly Challenger nearly 50 years ago, he created a paper that met the challenge of serving our readers that the four daily newspapers in the area at the time—the St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg Evening Independent, Tampa Tribune and Tampa Times—mostly ignored. A half-century later, three of these papers have ceased publication, with the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times) serving as the regional daily news publication. Thanks to you, The Weekly Challenger remains vibrant and vital.
Through our partnership with the USFSP Poynter Library, the Challenger will remain an important voice in the community for many years to come. (The paper now has a digital archive at the library. You can access it here.)
For me, studying the communities around me and writing about them is a kind of community service and a form of activism that I enjoy.
The Weekly Challenger Newspaper has been around for over 50 years, as the most comprehensive source for gathering, organizing and presenting news and information to the African-American communities in the St. Pete and Clearwater areas…with a smattering of Tampa mixed in. Recently, I wrote an article about our work for the Nieman Report: https://bit.ly/2FjCBsa
Here are some links of just a few of the Challenger articles I’ve written that I think are cool. You can check out work I’ve written for other sites as well at jakeannjones.contently.com.