The aim to reconcile decades of mistrust begins with the will to make it happen

In 2020, the Colorado Media Project, a philanthropic organization dedicated to local news sustainability, launched the Voices Initiative as an opportunity for community members from under-represented groups to explore why trust in the media was at an all-time low and what could be done to restore it.

I was invited to participate in the Latinx Voices group, but I wanted to hear more from other groups as well. Being in a leadership role in a Colorado newsroom, I had made it my mission to create teams that are more inclusive and reflective of the communities we cover.

Listening to Black leaders talk about their recommendations for building trust was truly eyeopening, and I found it fascinating that their top request of media was not to hire more reporters and editors of color, but to acknowledge past harms in coverage.

Nationally, many publications — The Kansas City Star, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and some publications in the South — have done this, apologizing for past harms, and it has helped them better connect with the communities they serve.

In the words of the Black Voices group, “For there to be any room to build, create and foster healthy, reciprocal and trusting relationships with Black communities, there must first be an uncovering of material harms and a commitment to addressing those harms.”

Those words were still playing in my mind when I came to a Denver Press Club presentation of the Black Panther Press by senior librarian Jameka Lewis, who assisted us in this project. In describing the culture in which the activist newspaper existed, she highlighted some examples of coverage at the time, including many from the Golden Transcript. Thanks to the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection’s work in archiving the state’s newspapers, the 157-year-old Transcript’s stories were easily accessible.

As publisher of Colorado Community Media, I was, of course, interested since the Transcript is one of our publications.

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, the Transcript ran nearly 170 stories mentioning the Black Panther Party, many of which portrayed the Panthers in a negative light and primarily focused on violent acts in other states that did little to share insight on the group’s efforts locally. They rarely covered appearances by Black Panther leaders. It made me uncomfortable to be a representative of this publication, and it made me realize that we, too, had something to atone for.

The Golden Transcript was awarded a grant by the Colorado Media Project to explore, uncover and analyze this issue in the form of a special report that is in this edition of your newspaper. As a result, our newsroom participated in the Maynard Institute’s diversity, equity and inclusion Fault Lines training, and our West Metro editor, Kristen Fiore, was a speaker at the Advancing Equity in Local News convening with journalists from publications like the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Washington Post to talk about this project. Our journalists spent over a year working on this project, and we know that eyes are peeled to see how a small, local newspaper will pull this off.

Our predominantly White newsroom was tasked with scrutinizing the tainted coverage that came decades before and working out how to repair the relationship with Black readers today, many who distrust traditional forms of media because of past biases like the ones we detailed in the project.

We see this project as more than a story about the past. It instructs us in our efforts to better build and engage our communities and to include everyone in civic conversations. At first, people tended to clam up when they heard what we were doing. We understand; acknowledging racism is a touchy subject. Yet, eventually, people started to talk and we learned from those conversations that more conversations are needed.

We learned that talking about racism doesn’t have to be a touchy subject. It is often necessary. Our agenda is to build trust among all of our readers and to spark community dialogue about issues that matter. Thanks for reading — we appreciate the opportunity to cover all aspects of our communities, and we welcome your letters and thoughts about the Transcript – and CCM – as we move forward.

Linda Carpio Shapley is publisher of Colorado Community Media, which runs two dozen weekly and monthly publications in eight counties. She can be reached at lshapley@coloradocommunitymedia.com the paper contains original and reprinted content that was harmful to the Black community and other marginalized groups.

Just one example is its coverage of the Black Panther Party, a group that gained national attention in the late 1960s for its response to policing in Black communities across the country.

Between 1969-1971, the newspaper published approximately 170 articles that referenced the Black Panther Party. Nearly all of these articles presented the group in a negative light, with words such as “fugitive,” “thugs” and “militants.”

And, the Transcript appeared to rarely cover the Black community in the city and wider region. Because of this, their voices are missing in archives, now online as an important chronicling of Colorado’s history.

By not including these voices in an accurate light, and by publishing stories that reinforced harmful stereotypes and/or recorded Black people’s traumatic experiences in an apathetic or ippant way, the Golden Transcript’s coverage contributed to systemic racism, according to researchers and Black community leaders.

Jameka Lewis, senior librarian at the Denver Public Library’s Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library and a freelance researcher on this report, said Transcript readers may have had their beliefs about the Black Panther Party, and the Black community in general, shaped by the Transcript’s negative portrayals.

“ ere is harm when it comes to media and the Black community in Denver and Colorado,” Lewis said. “If we want to repair the harms, we have to acknowledge that (they are) factual.”

Alfonzo Porter, editor-in-chief at Denver Urban Spectrum and a journalism professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, said mass media has been at the epicenter of “propagating negative images and re ections of the AfricanAmerican community.”

“It really stems out of our country’s background, and we’re still dealing with those biases,” he said.

While almost all of the Transcript’s stories about the Black Panther Party were from wire services like United Press International, Porter said the Transcript and other newspapers are accountable for reprinting those stories.

“It’s exactly like original reporting, because … the editorial sta sat in a room, looked at this piece, determined that it was appropriate and ran with it in the paper,” he said.

The Black Panther Party

e Black Panther Party for Self Defense started in 1966 in Oakland, California. Founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale started the organization as a response to police brutality there and in other Black communities, according to Lewis’ research.

e party had a 10-point program that included demands for Black liberation and societal improvement. Eventually, the Black Panthers led more than 35 community programs across the country, like the Free Breakfast for School Children Program — also known as e Free People’s Food Program, which helped feed Black children from economically disadvantaged families.

In Denver, a chapter gained recognition in 1967. Led by Lauren Watson, the chapter’s history was largely erased or ignored, Lewis said, adding that the Denver Panthers were instrumental in the ght for civil rights in Colorado.

It’s important to note that many Black community members both then and now have mixed feelings about the Panthers and their work, Lewis stressed.

Longtime Denver residents she interviewed formed their opinions largely based on what they read about the Black Panthers in newspapers and saw on TV. Yet that coverage contrasts with what many in the community saw the Denver Black Panthers doing. ey were involved in school board and City Council meetings, provided free meals for children, and worked to improve the