Bakewell, Other Black Media Leaders Address Congress on Census Ad Dollars - Hearing Results from NNPA Advocacy
by Pharoh Martin
NNPA National Correspondent
Originally posted 3/2/2010
WASHINGTON (NNPA) - A Congressional hearing has finally addressed Black newspaper publishers' and other ethnic media's campaign against inadequate advertising budgets set forth by the Census Bureau that some say undermines the nation's upcoming headcount of African-Americans.
The Information Policy, Census and National Archives Subcommittee held a hearing on Capitol Hill that examined the 2010 Census' integrated media campaign in what they deem 'hard-to-count' areas and assessed ethnic media's role in preventing an under count of minorities.
“I must tell you, there must be a lack of importance delivering the 2010 Census to all Black households throughout America, as evidenced by the Census' initial offer to buy advertisement in only a small portion of Black newspapers with a budget of $1.3 million dollars to count 40 million people,'' said Danny Bakewell, chairman of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a federation of more than 200 Black-owned newspapers. ''With a budget of $1.3 million, you don't intend to count Black people.”
Blacks were under counted by two percent in 2000, which amounted to a loss of $180 million in federal funds to Black communities, according to Bakewell's statistics.
“We need more money,'' Bakewell said. ''The Black Press of America needs at least $10 million dollars to have a consistent message in 200 Black newspapers throughout America. There is no reason to cherry pick.”
He held that only “trusted” media such as Black-owned broadcasters and newspapers would be able to effectively deliver the Census' message to Black communities.
“If you want to communicate with Black people than you're going to have to communicate through us,” Bakewell said.
Subcommittee chairman Rep. Lacy Clay (D- Mo.) chaired the three-panel hearing. He was flanked by congressional subcommittee members Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R- Utah), as well as Maxine Waters (D- Calif.) and Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), who are not officially listed as subcommittee members but attended because of their interest.
The hearing was a major accomplishment for minority media, but especially for NNPA’s Bakewell, who pushed for the members to hold the hearing as he engaged in behind the scenes warfare with those responsible for the spending.
Congressional subcommittee members grilled the Director of the Census Bureau and executives from advertising agencies in charge of the bureau's media buys for Census 2010. They included Dr. Robert Groves, Director of the United States Census Bureau, Jeff Tarakajian, executive vice president of advertising agency DRAFTFCB, Robbyn Ennis, Senior Associate Media Director for Black-owned advertising agency GlobalHue, which facilitated advertising buys for all African-American media.
Chaffetz began the hearing by scolding the Census director for failing to provide requested information to Congress.
“I am terribly disappointed in the Census on their inability and unwillingness to cooperate on giving us details that we have been asking for repeatedly,'' Chaffetz said. ''And I hold Director Groves personally accountable for his unresponsiveness, in a repeated nature. I think it's terribly disrespectful and unacceptable.''
He later called the Census' actions ''reprehensible”.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said that she was concerned about much of the information that she was receiving about media buyers threatening Black media into giving away placements in exchange for their allotted advertising funding.
''It appears that our message of the under count is not being respected,” She said.
Waters also shared that she believes that the money is not enough to be effective.
“The money does not appear to match the need,” she said.
Groves defended the amounts used to purchase media ads saying they were were based on statistical and historic data.
“I can honestly say that the program was set up in an objective manner guided by data on what audiences needed given their historical behavior,” Groves said in response to the perceived unfairness in media buys with ethnic media outlets.
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