Talk:List of African American newspapers and media outlets

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:African-American gospel which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:17, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Cleanup needed

This article certainly needs to be put into good shape, with everything edited to WP standards. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 01:50, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, I feel like the whole structure needs a serious rethinking. Much like the similarly-structured state lists of all newspapers (which would similarly run to unmaintainable thousands of entries if they were ever completed), this list seems to me like the kind of temporary kludge that worked well enough back in the 2000s but hasn't aged well.

In hindsight, building nowcruft like whether a paper is "active" or "defunct" into the heart of the list seems particularly ill-advised -- both conceptually (if I'm looking for context for a clipping from 1901 what do I care whether the paper is still around?) and practically (even if restricting the list to Notable newspapers, there are plenty of Notable newspapers that might not attract attention from reliable sources if they stopped publishing, leaving them in an unresolvable limbo between active and defunct).

I hate to surrender any ground at all to the creeping erythrophobia on WP, but perhaps it would make sense in this particular case to restrict this top-level list to bluelinks, with redlinks farmed out to state-level lists of AA newspapers? That, together with replacing the active/defunct split with some sort of geographical (or chronological?) one, would IMO go a long way toward making this list maintainable for contributors and useful for readers. -- Visviva (talk) 05:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree & will begin removing non-Notable papers in about a week unless there is an objection, and then we can talk about it. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 00:48, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Visviva @BeenAroundAWhile: I corrected an entry here (my own previously incorrect one!) and noticed the redlinked 92d Buffalo (mis-titled: it was The Buffalo) and 93d Blue Helmet. Curious, I went to the referenced Web sites and found myself interested and entertained. So I wouldn't want to see them removed under the proposal "to restrict this top-level list to bluelinks." I would have found them if I'd thought to look under the Arizona link at the end of the article, but why would I? Thank you for your consideration. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 19:44, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Larry. More complete is helpful, especially in small towns where there may be few people or reliable sources to create WP articles. Are there some examples of papers which people think are too minor to be here? Let's look at them and think whether we need criteria of circulation, length of publication, etc. If there aren't such examples, then keeping everything isn't a problem. Numbersinstitute (talk) 06:54, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Form of the listing

It would be easier to find and use the list if it were a sortable table, so it could be sorted by city, state, founding date, name, ending date if any, and online vs. paper. In the future we could add circulation and other information. I wanted to raise the idea here before doing it. For people who are not familiar with sortable tables, an example is at List of United States cities by population. Numbersinstitute (talk) 19:55, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate all the work the above editor did to make a sortable table, but I've reverted to the former, and to my mind, simpler, table. The sortable table is just too difficult to work with. Personally, I would have no idea how to make a new entry without a lot of copying and pasting. Thanks for trying it anyway. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 04:04, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

The sortable table format lets people find all papers in a state or city, which is one of the most common reasons people come to this page. It also solves the problems mentioned above of extant vs. defunct papers, since readers can use that category or ignore it, and can put "unknown" when necessary.

Sortable tables are common throughout Wikipedia, for example in List of U.S. cities with large African-American populations, Military history of African Americans#Military history of African Americans in popular culture, African diaspora#Populations and estimated distribution. I don't suppose we would remove all those.

Editing is very similar in table and non-table format. For example the first three entries are:

* The Christian Recorder, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1854
* The People's Advocate, Alexandria, Virgina, 1874
* Savannah Tribune, Savannah, Georgia, 1875

and in table format:

|The Christian Recorder||Pittsburgh||Pennsylvania||1854||Extant
|- 	
|The People's Advocate||Alexandria||Virginia||1874||Extant
|- 	
|Savannah Tribune||Savannah||Georgia||1875||Extant
|-

The extra blank lines make the table format a bit easier to read while editing. Entries start with space star space in the first format and a vertical line in the second format. Entries are separated by comma and space in the first format and by 2 vertical lines in the table format. On all keyboards I've seen the vertical line is readily available above the back slash. Let's help readers find papers by city and state, rather than be limited by an editor's personal preferences. Numbersinstitute (talk) 15:20, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I can't agree. The proposed form is extremely difficult to edit (to add new information) and unnecessary for ease of reading, which should be front and center for readers seeking simple facts. As to whether newspapers are extant or defunct, that information can easily be put into the description of the paper. This complicated proposal solves a "problem" that does not exist and just puts another roadblock in the path of an editor who merely wants to make a simple addition. Yours, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 19:52, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

There is also no good reason to alphabetize newspapers which begin with the word The. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 19:53, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@Sandstein: @CaroleHenson: @Poetryjoint: @Peteforsyth: @Ira Leviton: @NmuoMmiri: @LibSciGirl: @Jessamyn: @Blacksourcemedia: @Funandtrvl: @West Virginian: @Larrykoen: @Keithwashington24: @Narky Blert: @Kmmerryman1: @Artho718: @Keith D: @Jondorr: @Phoebe: @Lepricavark: These editors have edited the page in the past year, so they may have opinions on the best format, including the best ways to sort this wonderful list of papers. Numbersinstitute (talk) 21:01, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that this should be turned into a sortable table at the point at which this project is deemed to be complete or at least at a stopping point. Jessamyn (talk) 21:05, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I far prefer a sortable table. I don't understand what is meant by "opinions on the best format, including the best ways to sort this wonderful list of papers." I am guessing that means if a sortable table is not used? If it means the initial list, as the table is created, I would sort it by the newspaper name. Sometimes we know of the papers without knowing where they were published.–CaroleHenson (talk) 21:22, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

• I much prefer a sortable table. Setting one up where some columns are sortable and some are not (e.g. a Notes column) is fiddly, but once done it's done forever. The simplest method is to find a working example, and copy and modify it (examples in WP:WikiProject Bluelink patrol/Archive; I forget where I got the models for those from; we're going to have to format the entries tidily one day, but as yet we haven't - it would be much easier with a more-or-less static table, which the ones there aren't). Once set up, a sortable table both looks more professional and is easier to navigate. To add a new entry, just copy/paste the one above your addition and edit it.

For sorting issues with names and dates, see Help:Sorting, {{sortname}} and {{date}} (that last is only useful if you're sorting down to month and day, which may not be the case here)). For example, {{sortname|The Christian Recorder||Christian Recorder}} would sort under "C". (There's also the quirky and disliked {{sort}}; please don't use it, fixing bad links is tricky and counter-intuitive). Narky Blert (talk) 00:32, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• A sortable table would be an improvement, in my view. Regarding "I would have no idea how to make a new entry without a lot of copying and pasting," I've had this kind of problem from the beginning of my efforts in editing and then creating articles. But I discovered that finding a model for what I want to do is not so hard, and doing so makes me a more effective editor and helps improve the articles that I edit. The goal is the best article for the end user, be they casual reader or serious researcher; rather than the easiest for the naïve editor to modify.

Finally, before reverting the article away from a structure that is common throughout Wikipedia and that is acknowledged to have taken some work, it would have been better (much better!) to begin a discussion of the disagreement here, on the Talk page. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 02:13, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Regarding formatting, at first I had a hard time ensuring that I had the right formatting for each row, so I started adding a blank (no values, but 2 spaces) row in comments right underneath the table. Then, I just needed to copy the rows right where they needed to be inserted, added values in the places with 2 spaces and I was good to go.–CaroleHenson (talk) 03:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

This is especially helpful if there are a lot of columns.–CaroleHenson (talk) 03:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

3O Response: I have declined BeenAroundAWhile's request for a Third Opinion: this is not used when more than two editors are involved. @BeenAroundAWhile; you seem to be in a minority of one here: there is a clear consensus against your view. It happens to us all; but I suggest that it's best to leave it there now. With respect to all, Springnuts (talk) 15:44, 10 May 2021 (UTC) Springnuts (talk) 15:44, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• The only problem with the sortable table is that it becomes too big. I'd prefer if it was broken up under different headings, such as "Current" (better word?) and "Defunct", at least. The other problem with tables, is that in order to add things that are being sorted, that it extends the width of the table to the right, so that it doesn't display on one page, but almost 2 pages wide. A third problem with tables is if you are missing one bracket or hyphen, it breaks the table. I can't begin to count the number of tables that have to be fixed out there, after an inexperienced editor has added something. I don't see a problem with keeping the format as it is now. --Funandtrvl (talk) 16:13, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@Larrykoen: @CaroleHenson: @Narky Blert: @BeenAroundAWhile: @Jessamyn: If we do go to a sortable table, I suggest the underlying editable list be in order by name of paper. That means an entry won't need to be moved if new information appears about its founding date or location. Papers do change names, but not often. Papers like The Christian Recorder can be Christian Recorder, The. Numbersinstitute (talk) 01:44, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree. I like the idea of adding "The" to the end of the paper name, rather than using the sort template.–CaroleHenson (talk) 02:06, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

I like it too. The only sortable prefix I can think of is "The" or perhaps "A", which often gets dropped in both speech and writing. Sorting by "name without article" looks the natural way to do it, and the easiest for readers. Narky Blert (talk) 06:54, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

• I reverted back to the sortable table and will update to include the two edits between the reversion to pre-sortable and the present. I agree that putting "the" at the end of the newspaper name will be desirable. That is the next step. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 23:23, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

This looks really great, nice work everyone. Jessamyn (talk) 20:28, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Sorry I'm late to the party, but I wanted to say I think the new format is a vast improvement. I believe many readers would be interested only in a subset, e.g. the newspapers in one state or founded in a certain time period, and the sortable table makes it easy for them to see all those papers together.

I notice that the "The"s have not been removed from many papers, as discussed above; I'm happy to take care of that unless I'd be getting in somebody's way. I also look forward to finding ways to improve the page apart from the table, but that seems like a topic for another section. Anyway, thanks for your work all. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 17:18, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I moved The to the end of the names and alphabetized the default order. At least one online paper is in the list. What do people think about putting all the online papers in the list, with state set as "online"? Also I did not put closing date in a separate column, since I doubt people will search on that. It could be done. Numbersinstitute (talk) 00:14, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I like the idea of distinguishing online papers from print; but it might be better to use a "state" name which sorts to the top or bottom of the list, rather than between Oklahoma and Oregon. I've no really satisfactory suggestion to make, except perhaps *Online.

Oh, and I do like the sortable table; very easy to navigate. Narky Blert (talk) 13:00, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks for the "The" moves! I am thinking about another mass change. Wikipedia:Manual of Style#en dashes says that hyphens should not be used between dates, as they are in nearly all the table entries for defunct newspapers here. Instead, they want en dashes, i.e., "–" instead of "-". This is easy to do and I will do this in a day or two if I don't read objections here. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 19:16, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other, as long as we realize that most people adding or editing entries won't know to include en dashes, so will use hyphens, and people who care about it will need to replace them. Numbersinstitute (talk) 06:54, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

• thanks to user:Numbersinstitute and everyone who made this a sortable table! It looks great, big improvement. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 15:13, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Form of the references

Many references list the author of the reference as National Endowment for the Humanities, and do not provide the name of the Web site. But if you look at the referenced Web site, it does not list an author. The Web site name is Chronicling America, and this is a unit of the National Endowment for the Humanities; hardly an author.

I propose to change every instance of "author=National Endowment for the Humanities" to "website=Chronicling America."

In addition, the individual Web pages here referenced with NEH as the author actually precede the newspaper name with "About." So for page titles, I propose changing the affected ones from, e.g., "title=Semi-weekly Louisianian" to "title=About Semi-weekly Louisianian."

I actually referenced this newspaper in this format. I changed it because the previous reference was incorrect. "Fortier, Alcee (July 1888). "Louisianian Nursery-Tales". The Journal of American Folklore. 1 (2): 140–145. doi:10.2307/533818. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 533818." had nothing about the Semi-weekly Louisianian.

Changing this one reference has me thinking that the great majority of references in the article have an improper form, hence this proposal. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 18:49, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes the Sem-weekly Louisianian looks much better, clearly giving Library of Congress as source. I assume you know how to change them all at once, not individually. Numbersinstitute (talk) 17:14, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree, this should be changed. It's an artifact of automated footnote generation (in the VisualEditor and/or the ProveIt gadget), which scrape websites and make their best guess about bibliographic info; so unless we can get the folks at Chronicling America to optimize their site for that, or get the coders to update their code with something specific to this website, we'll probably keep seeing these added. Having a clear standard for how it should look, though, would be helpful. If a consensus is developed here, I suggest mentioning it in the pages at WP:WikiProject Newspapers, WP:WikiProject Journalism etc. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 17:36, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

I made this change and was surprised at some references errors that came up: website= and journal= are redundant; title= and newspaper= are redundant. I fixed these.

An ambitious person might want to use the Chronicling America pages to include the ISSN and the LCCN in each entry. That would be labor intensive.

I used the open source package Notepad++ for my mass changes this morning, while also fixing the errors there, item by item. I am unaware of any Wikipedia (or Web browser) tools for such mass changes. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 19:02, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

@Larrykoen: You'd probably appreciate AWB, it lets you make lots of programmatic edits like this. Let me know if you need some help getting it going...it's a little tricky to get the hang of the first time. It's Windows-only, but if you're using Notepad++ I'm guessing that's not a problem! -Pete Forsyth (talk) 04:38, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

An under-utilized resource

Some of the "By state" articles that are linked in this one, at least all that I've reviewed, contain numerous references to this book:

• Danky, James Philip; Hady, Maureen E., eds. (1998). African-American newspapers and periodicals : a national bibliography. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674007888.

This source, which is only under-utilized in the present article, may help clear up some dates. It did in the case of Black Times, which was listed as 1971–? but is now listed as 1971–1976?, thanks to this very useful reference work. You will observe from the listing here that it is available online. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 17:13, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for this. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 17:27, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Was print, now only online

A recent edit added Jet and Ebony, both of whose Web sites appear to offer only digital subscriptions, to the Print section. It is a conundrum: they were print, now they are online only. Where should they go in the article? Perhaps there is a Wikipedia policy that offers guidance. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 00:11, 4 April 2022 (UTC)