Blogging While Brown: Communities of Color Aren’t Waiting for Your Outreach

You probably missed the recent Blogging While Brown Conference (July 25 - 27, Atlanta), which was small but apparently quite successful. Comments and reviews on blogs and elsewhere seem generally positive. Several attendees also posted photos and video. Here’s a list of blogs that were in attendance, and the founder’s blog offered official coverage.

Blogging While Brown shows how citizen media can respond directly to how communities prefer to receive and interact with information. The story here isn’t just interactivity—it’s inclusion.

One session should particularly interest news organizations…

Bridges: Build, Cross or Burn? Can New Media Work With the Old Guard and Old Media? Here’s what several bloggers reported about that workshop. Theo Johnson livestreamed the video. It’s worth watching, in no small part because the three accomplished women on the panel have a number of important insights to share with you.

Video chat rooms at Ustream

The stated mission of the Blogging While Brown conference bears repeating:

“Whether it’s fighting injustice, debating racism in the media, serving as a new technology underground railroad of information or celebrating our best and brightest, bloggers of color are a vital and viable part of the blogosphere who aren’t afraid to voice their opinions on a number of subjects. ...Blogging While Brown is the first international conference for bloggers of color. For the first time this new generation of activists, entrepreneurs and new media content creators will step out from behind their keyboards and meet in person.”

This emphasis on opinion and activism might make some traditional news organizations wary. However, it’s important to recognize that these things are valued in many communities of color. And whenever you’re trying to connect with people, it helps to show that you respect their values.

A quick search of Google News reveals that mainstream news organizations largely overlooked the event. That was a missed opportunity. But fortunately, this group and event appear to be picking up steam—so there’s still time to build bridges there.

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