Baltimore Beat Returns
Its Re-Launch Tells a Story About What Reckoning Can Mean
“Journalism is still a very white industry. There aren’t a lot of places Black journalists can go where they will be valued, heard, and respected. I want Baltimore Beat to be a place where that can happen.” - Lisa Snowden, Editor-in-Chief, Baltimore Beat
Perhaps you’re like us, having watched the somewhat halting rise of Baltimore Beat and its bid to become the city’s alternative weekly in the years since the shut down of the Baltimore City Paper in 2017. Maybe you’ve been following the unflinching commentary of the Beat’s editor-in-chief Lisa Snowden over on Twitter at @LisaMcCray. Whether you’re a reader of the Afro, the Sun, or both, you know that there’s still plenty of room still for real-time news and analysis in Baltimore.
Baltimore Beat is a “Black-led, Black-controlled nonprofit and online outlet.” This summer, Baltimoreans can look forward to finding the paper — free and in ink on paper — distributed in the city. The paper’s site explains that “free print news is a necessity in Baltimore, a majority Black city with a significant digital divide and so many people living below the poverty line.”
The story behind the paper’s rebirth speaks to Hard Histories’ interest in discovering the forms that reparations might take in Baltimore. Over at Baltimore Magazine, senior editor Ron Cassie reported how the Lillian Holofcener Charitable Foundation opted out of making a small grant to seed the restart of the Beat. Instead, the foundation emptied its “coffers,” valued at about $1 million, to support the paper’s slow and sustainable growth, explained its director of operations, Brandon Soderberg.
With this, Snowden and her team will steer the Beat’s future. Power has been relinquished by philanthropists to given over to community based journalists. The foundation’s spokesperson, Adam Holofcener, explained “It was just as important to divest—to take some of that power away from ourselves—and return that power to the community.”
We’ll eagerly watch for the first issue of the Beat to appear on our street corners. (And we’ll quietly hope that some of Baltimore’s hard history will make it into its pages.) And we will be talking about this approach to reckoning for a long time to come. In a city that has in so many instances been shaped by philanthropy laced with paternalism, the realtionship between the Beat and the Holofcener Foundation is a vision for how our future need not replicate our past. Reparations can be transformative.
— MSJ
It's so awesome to learn about the Baltimore Beat. My wife and I often travel to "Charm City." We love the music, culture and energy there. Living in rural Va., my wife often refers to "Bawdamore" as a city where we (an African American couple), can simply live and move freely. I am certain there is so much more history in that beautiful city and it's black people that we don't know, but would love to learn. I'll be following the Beat to stay on top of what will be uncovered next. I'm excited!!
Reading this story about the return of the Baltimore Beat, here in far off Michigan, gives me hope. So encouraging. May the Baltimore Beat inspire many.