It’s important to have news platforms that are specifically tailored to fit the needs of black people who wish to stay informed. This is more true now than ever before, as the current global health crisis has proven to infect and kill black people disproportionately in the U.S. Thankfully, one black journalist was innovative enough to provide a space where we can stay informed and updated on the pandemic.
Black Enterprise reports that veteran journalist Patrice Peck recently launched the newsletter “SpeakPatrice Presents: Coronavirus News for Black Folks”—a publication dedicated to keeping black people up on the latest news involving the health emergency.
Peck says the newsletter will publish about three stories a week, which will include opinion essays and any other news pertaining to the coronavirus pandemic and the effects it has on the black community.
“As a black woman and freelance journalist passionate about writing stories for us, I’ve been desperately brainstorming constructive ways to lend my writing skills to help suppress the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and pandemic,” Peck wrote. “At the same time, for a *long* time, I’ve been wanting to write more original stories independent from any publication, for my own audience, and to start a newsletter as a way of practicing that. So I decided to combine all of these ideas and dedicate my newsletter SpeakPatrice to highlighting coronavirus news for black folks, both stories written by other journalists and by me, Patrice Peck.”
This is a good look, not only for black people who need to stay informed but for black writers and journalists. The more space we have to share our voices with the world, the better. And, with all the misinformation surrounding the outbreak—such as the thoroughly debunked myth that persisted in the early stages of the pandemic saying that black people are immune to the virus—we need news we can trust coming from our own people.