Media 2070 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 28
its former owner, Thomas Day, who bought the paper in
1855. Day once wrote in an editorial that “we believe the
Caucasian variety of the human species superior to the
Negro variety; and we would breed the best stock.”23
15. Ibid
16. Ibid
17. Rebecca Onion, “George Washington’s 1761 Ad Seeking Four Fugitive Slaves,” Slate,
July 10, 2015: https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/07/george-washington-and-slavery1761-newspaper-ad-seeking-four-fugitive-slaves.html; “Maryland Gazette Runaway Slave
Advertisement, Aug. 20, 1761,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon, accessed on Sept.
9, 2020: https://www.mountvernon.org/education/primary-sources-2/article/maryland-
The Courant’s apology for its slave ads and its
acknowledgement of its previous owners’ whitesupremacist views shows that it’s never too late for a
news organization to reconcile with its past — and correct
the record for the harms they caused to Black people for
generations.
gazette-runaway-slave-advertisement-august-20-1761/
18. Arlene Balkansky, “Runaway! Fugitive Slave Ads in Newspapers,” Library of Congress,
Oct. 1, 2019: https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2019/10/runaway-fugitive-slaveads-in-newspapers/
19. Tom Costa, “What Can We Learn from a Digital Database of Runaway Slave
Advertisements?” International Social Science Review, Vol. 76, No. 1 & 2, 2001, p. 36; Kevin
Waite, “Thomas Jefferson’s 1769 Newspaper Ad Seeking a Fugitive Slave,” Slate, Sept. 30,
2014: https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/09/thomas-jefferson-slavery-history-hisnewspaper-ad-for-a-fugitive-for-his-plantation.html
20. DeNeen L. Brown, “Hunting Down Runaway Slaves: The Cruel Ads of Andrew Jackson
and ‘the Master Class’,” The Washington Post, March 1, 2017: https://www.washingtonpost.
•••
1. Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer: Newspaper Advertising and the Moral
Economy of the North American Slave Trade, 1704–1807,” Early American Studies: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, Summer 2020: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/760446, p. 287
2. Ibid, p. 292; bio on Jordan E. Taylor, accessed on Aug. 17, 2020: https://www.smith.
edu/academics/faculty/jordan-taylor
com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/04/11/hunting-down-runaway-slaves-the-cruel-ads-ofandrew-jackson-and-the-master-class/
21. “Firms Own Dailies That Were Vital to Slave Economy,” USA Today, Feb. 21, 2002:”
https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-newspapers.htm.
Advance Publications owned The Times-Picayune of New Orleans and Knight Ridder owned
The Macon Telegraph in Georgia. Advance Publications sold the Times-Picayune to the
3. Ibid Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer,” p. 299
owners of the Louisiana paper The Advocate in 2019 (Sara Guaglione, “Advance Sells
4. Ibid, p. 287
‘Time-Picayune’ Newspaper to ‘Advocate’ Owners,” MediaPost, May 3, 2019: https://www.
5. Ibid, p. 323
6. “Slave Advertisements,” National Park Service, accessed on Aug. 17, 2020:
https://www.nps.gov/boaf/winter-newsletter-2015-slave-advertisements.
htm; The Boston Newsletter, Number 1, April 1704: https://www.masshist.org/
database/186; Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer: The Slave Trade and Early
American Newspaper Advertising,” July 21, 2020: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/
stories/7d6dcdc8d7a24d34a08f1605e64c292e
mediapost.com/publications/article/335407/advance-sells-times-picayune-newspaperto-advoc.html). The Macon Telegraph became The Telegraph in 2005 and Knight Ridder
sold the paper to the McClatchy Company in 2006 (“About The Telegraph”: https://www.
macon.com/customer-service/about-us/). Media General owned The Richmond Times
Dispatch but sold nearly all of its newspapers to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway
in 2012 (John Reid Blackwell, “Warren Buffett Buys Times-Dispatch,” Richmond TimesDispatch, May 17, 2012: https://richmond.com/business/warren-buffett-buys-times-
7. Ibid Jordan E. Taylor, p. 304
8. Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer: Newspaper Advertising and the Moral
Economy of the North American Slave Trade, 1704–1807,” Early American Studies: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, Summer 2020: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/760446, pp. 304–305
9. Robert E. Desrochers Jr., “Slave for Sale Advertisements and Slavery in Massachusetts,
1704–1781,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 3, July 2002, pp. 623–664
10. Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer: The Slave Trade and Early
American Newspaper Advertising,” July 21, 2020: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/
stories/7d6dcdc8d7a24d34a08f1605e64c292e, p. 306
11. “Benjamin Franklin’s Anti-Slavery Petitions to Congress,” the Center for Legislative
Archives, accessed on Aug. 17, 2020: https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/
franklin; Gary B. Nash, “Slavery’s Foe, at Last: Learning to Be an Abolitionist,” TIME, July 7,
2003: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1005153,00.html; “Slavery
and the Abolition Society,” Benjamin Franklin Historical Society, accessed on Aug. 17,
2020: http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/slavery-abolition-society/
12. Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer: Newspaper Advertising and the Moral
Economy of the North American Slave Trade, 1704–1807,” Early American Studies: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, Summer 2020: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/760446, p. 297
13. Ibid, pp. 293–294
dispatch/article_097130a6-4099-11e2-9e52-0019bb30f31a.html). But Buffett sold his
newspapers, including the Dispatch, in 2020 (John Reid Blackwell, “Warren Buffett Selling
Newspapers, Including the Richmond Times-Dispatch, to Lee Enterprises,” Richmond TimesDispatch, Jan. 29, 2020: https://richmond.com/news/warren-buffett-selling-newspapersincluding-the-richmond-times-dispatch-to-lee-enterprises/article_fe8135f7-58b1-50bdaffe-ba6b1a9d616f.html). E.W. Scripps owned Memphis’ Commercial Appeal at the time
of the USA Today article’s publication. The Journal Media Group later briefly owned it; it
became a property of Gannett in 2015 (Andy Meek, “Commercial Appeal Parent Company
Sold to Gannett,” Memphis Daily News, Oct. 8, 2015: https://www.memphisdailynews.
com/news/2015/oct/8/commercial-appeal-may-be-getting-new-ownership-again/);
“The Baltimore Sun,” Encylopaedia Britannica, accessed on Aug. 17, 2020: https://www.
britannica.com/topic/The-Baltimore-Sun
22. “Older Than the Nation,” The Hartford Courant, Dec. 29, 2013: https://www.courant.
com/about/thc-history-htmlstory.html; Jesse Leavenworth and Kevin Canfield, “Courant
Complicity in an Old Wrong,” The Hartford Courant, July 4, 2000: https://www.courant.
com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2000-07-04-0007040049-story.html (more about the
Courant’s history)
23. Ibid Jesse Leavenworth and Kevin Canfield
14. Eve M. Kahn, “Databases Offer Insights Into the Lives of Escape Slaves,” The New York
Times, Feb. 16, 2016: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/arts/design/new-databasesoffer-insights-into-the-lives-of-escaped-slaves.html; DeNeen L. Brown, “Hunting Down
Runaway Slaves: The Cruel Ads of Andrew Jackson and ‘the Master Class,’” The Washington
Post, April 11, 2017: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/04/11/
hunting-down-runaway-slaves-the-cruel-ads-of-andrew-jackson-and-the-master-class/
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