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267 22. Dusk By February 1997, four months after the closing of the City Sun, Maitefa Angaza, the newspaper’s last executive editor, described the general state of the black press as “a medium in crisis.” With her feisty former newspaper vanquished, the Amsterdam News stood at the top of the heap as the undisputed leader of New York City black weeklies, even as it had atrophied. Its circulation by 1997 had shrunk to 28,000, down from 37,500 in 1996 (even that number was down substantially compared to the pre-1983 strike circulation of 41,000). Other black-oriented papers—the Daily Challenge, Carib News, Beacon, and Queens Voice—listed much smaller circulation numbers and competed for crumbs from a shrinking pie.1 Angaza’s outlook was gloomy because she was determined to revive the City Sun,but her dream would be daunting.The national monthly magazine Emerge published the kind of hard-hitting and irreverent stories that mirrored Angaza’s local City Sun. Emerge’s circulation of 161,000 was fiercely loyal, but prospective advertisers considered it anemic. Ebony maintained a robust circulation—nearly two million monthly—and a healthy advertisingto -editorial ratio, but its content was notoriously cautious and bourgeois. Joel Dreyfuss, who was trying to convince investors to underwrite his Our World News, an online and print venture, was an admirer of the City Sun, and he indentified its problem: “I think the analysis of city politics in the City Sun was wonderful,and was really the only voice for that in the city.The problem is that I don’t think that sells papers. It was like the Nation or the New Republic, which has solid analysis but never made any money.” What those magazines had was underwriters with deep pockets who were willing to tolerate no profits or modest losses in exchange for must-read journals that catered to the political, decision-making elite. A lively, politically and culturally robust City Sun could not draw on those endless resources.“What happened to the black press,” said Dreyfuss, a former Black Enterprise and PC Magazine editor,“is that the papers just became obsolete.” Dreyfuss’s outlook was grim because sponsors quickly dumped quality black-oriented publications that did not pay for themselves. Youth magazine YSB (Young Sisters and Brothers), owned by Black Entertainment Television, shut down in the same month as the City Sun because of weak 268 Dusk advertising support.The owners tried to appeal to twenty- and thirty-something Vibe magazine readers, but that demographic group did not respond with enthusiasm. BET turned its sights to another print vehicle, BET Weekend , an entertainment-oriented magazine that was inserted in a handful of big-city daily newspapers, including the New York Daily News. That magazine did not last long, either. Another publishing phenomenon was the free newspapers available to urban commuters via kiosks or from hawkers at subway entrances.Also,the venerable Village Voice,a longtime for-sale alternative weekly, became a free shopper with news and arts and entertainment content when its ownership changed.2 Meanwhile the City Sun had collapsed under a mountain of debt and bankruptcies. How could it rise again? That fall Angaza, Armond White, Milton Allimadi, former editor Rhea Mandulo, and Kevin Goldin formed the City Sun Employees Inc. and organized fund-raisers. Their initial event drew a light turnout but attracted supporters from Amnesty International and Manhattan city councilwoman Ruth Messinger. The event happened to coincide with the opening of Al Sharpton’s new National Action Network headquarters. The City Sun employees raised $15,000 from an art auction at the Caribbean Cultural Center in Brooklyn and from another event in January. The group said it needed $500,000 to relaunch the newspaper.“We haven’t raised the kind of money we hoped to raise,” Angaza told the New York Daily News,“but enough to keep us going.The events that we have have shown that we have a lot of support.” Angaza projected that the group’s SunRise Initiative needed to raise $1.2 million in capital to resume publication and then had to break even within seven months. Goldin said the new group would not be liable for any debts of the original City Sun, but the claim was debatable. Utrice Leid reminded them that her active lawsuit claimed the enterprise owed her $300,000: “It is a noble effort I suppose, but . . . there are other creditors who have to be satisfied.”3 The employees...

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