In Black America; The Black News Channel, with JC Watts and Gray Wordlaw

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is In Black America. It's an African American news channel that is culturally specific to the African American community and it is for African Americans and about African Americans and I think people in my life's experiences of living for 61 years. I think over the last, you know, for much of my time in public service you've gotten one view or one perspective or one picture of the African American community and it's so much more in the black community than crime. There's obviously politics, there's economics, there's wellness, there's faith, there's culture, there's a whole host of things that exist in the black community and we want to be the

venue, the network that tells those stories. JC Watts, co-founder and chairman of the Black news channel. Scheduled to launch in January of 2020, the Black news channel will be the nation's only provider of 24-7 cable news programming dedicated to covering the perspective of African American communities. According to Watts, BNC will provide access to information and educational programming to meet the needs of this growing and dynamic community that is the major consumer of subscription television services. BNC will provide an authentic new voice that represents African Americans in mainstream media and fosters political economic and social discourse. The network will be one voice representing the many voices of African Americans. Also, the channel will illuminate truth about the unique challenges facing urban communities and help close to image gap. I'm Johnny O'Hanston Jr and welcome to another edition of in Black America.

On this week's program, the Black news channel will JC Watts co-founder and chairman and Gary Worclaw vice president of news and programming the Black news channel in Black America. Well, when you started your broadcast day or watching our broadcast day, we're going to start off with a three-hour block of news from 6am until 9am. We're then going to have a program live out of Washington DC that focuses on the politics of the day as seen through the eye of the Congressional Black Caucus. When that show is over, we go into another live broadcast and from Tallahassee or studio with two young female anchors and that show is going to be called Being a Woman. It's going to highlight issues of the day as it relates to young girls up to the age of women's 30. They're going to talk about issues that are important to them. In the afternoon, we're going to a series of programs that we call the BNC presents. Those programs will feature documentaries on Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, Beyonce, Rihanna, Little Wayne, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson. If

it's a pop culture person, we have a show that's going to spotlight that as well as Morgan Freeman's look at the chilling circuit blues. But we kind of have a little bit of of everything for everybody in that program. Gary Worclaw vice president of news and programming the Black news channel. On January 25, 1980, Black Entertainment Television made its debut. At the time, it will become the most prominent television network targeting the African-American community. We now have the African channel, Bounce TV, Aspire TV, Cleo TV, Own, and TV One, just to name a few. On January 6, 2020, the Black news channel will began providing all things African-American, put together by a group of entrepreneurs led by former Congressman JC Watts. The Black news channel will be the nation's only 24-7 provider of cable news programming dedicated to covering the unique perspective of African-American communities. BNC will provide an authentic

new voice that represents African-Americans in mainstream media and foster political, economic, and social discourse. The new channel promises to inform, educate, and empower nearly 50 million African-Americans now living in this country, racially in Black America, spoke with Gary Worclaw regarding the network. I was born in Tennessee, a little town called South Pittsburgh, which is near well, not a whole lot. But I grew up in Chattanooga with the school there. I started my career in broadcast there at age 16. From 50 years later, I find myself at the Black news channel. My journey has taken me from Tennessee to the West Coast, back to the East Coast, New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle. I've kind of been all over the place, but I'm very happy to be in Tallahassee ready to help launch this Black news channel. What sparked out initial interest in journalism and communications? When I was a kid working at a restaurant,

I used to argue with some of the customers about everything from religion to politics. A man that would come in often was a chief petty officer in the Navy and he said to me one day, he said, kid, you got a lot of mouth. You ought to be on television. And of course, I like it because there weren't no Blacks on television in my hometown. So he said, I want you to go up there and talk to the station manager. I know him. Till I might send you, he'll give you a job. Well, he was true to his word. I went to the station. They gave me a job. I started working in the studio in a year and a half later. I was on the air and I was building the air for some 40 years. Do you remember that first job? I do. I was, uh, it was the TVC television, Chattanooga, and my title was floor manager. What that meant was I had to manage to clean that floor every night. But it was an auspicious start, but nonetheless, it spawned a career. Having been in the industry for such a long time, what differences and innovations have you seen thus far

that has made what you do more efficient and better? When I first started working in television, we shot Black Black and White reverse negative film. They don't even make such a thing. I don't think anymore. So we've gone from the old film camera days to film processors. Now everybody who has a camera is a journalist. And so the innovations have been just absolutely phenomenal. Now understand, you are now the vice-friend of news and programming for the Black News Channel. Give us a thumbnail because we're going to go through some of the things that you are anticipating on doing with the channel. What the channel will look like? Well, when you started your broadcast day or watching our broadcast day, we're going to start off with a three hour block of news from 6am until 9am. We're then going to have a program live out of Washington, D.C. that focuses on the politics of the day as seen through the eyes of the congressional black news of the congressional black hawkers rather.

When that show is over, we go into another live broadcast and from Tallahassee or studio with two young female anchors and that show is going to be called being a woman. And it's going to highlight issues of the day as it relates to young girls up to the age of women's 30. They're going to talk about issues that are important to them. And then we go into a series of programs that we call the BNC presents. Those programs will feature documentaries on Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, Beyonce, Rihanna, Lil Wayne, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson. If it's a pop culture person, we have a show that's going to spotlight that as well as Morgan Freeman's look at the chilling circuit blues. So we kind of have a little bit of of everything for everybody in that program. Later in the afternoon, we have another show that's primarily focused on females is called Ladies' Choice. And this show is going to spotlight issues that are important to women, 30 plus. And so that's going to be hosted by our

two female anchors, one of which happens to be a clinical psychologist. We then go into a three-hour block of prime news that will air live from our studios. And obviously it'll be in prime on the west coast. We also have programs that feature Dr. Cory A. Bear as our staff medical person who will be producing programs on health as it relates to the African-American audience. Mark McEwen, formerly of CBS News, will host a program for men and it's called All Things Men. And so he's going to sit back and talk with everybody from ministers to football players. So we're going to highlight those issues that are important to the fellows. And that's just some of the highlights. We're going to have Olympic programming. We have HBCU sports programming. We have FIBA World Basketball. We have star workouts. So if it's of interest to the black audience, it's of interest to us and we intend to put it on, as well as spotlighting the best of our, the best of the best from the nation's HBCU's. We have a program that's

specially designed for our HBCU students to be able to show themselves off, as it were, and programming that we're going to produce around their reports as well. How did you all go about deciding what to put on here? I'm quite sure you're having a large white board, a black board, or whatever kind of board that you are used to come up with this line up. It really wasn't that complicated. I basically sit back and did and still for the most part. I mean, I would talk to people that I know. One of my favorite research facilities is called the Barbershop. You go in a barbershop and you listen to the brothers and you're going to come up with some stuff at TV. That's right. I like to say that the barbershop is a black man's country club. I'm going in, be myself and listen. And you get some pretty, you know, you get some pretty good research on what's happening in the black community. And you go to the beauty shop, you get the same thing. So I listen to the people and try to put together programming that people told me was of interest to them.

All right, that. Mr. Worla, what makes you excited about this invention? Well, for the first time in forever, we're going to have a network where we are unapologetically black. The world will look in and catch us being ourselves and they'll find out that we're more than crime in the streets. We're more than music. We're more than sports. We have brains. We have opinions. We have scientists. We have educators. We have lawyers. We have doctors. We know we have specialists. It's nothing wrong with being a star football player or a basketball player. It's nothing wrong with being a musician. But the world's going to see us in greater scope than Jeff Athletics, our music. I understand. If you're just joining us, I'm John L. Hanson Jr. and you're listening to In Black America from KUT Radio and speaking of Gary Worge Law by his friends of news and programming at the Black News Channel Cable Network. Mr. Worge Law, I saw there's a cost that of 20 some million dollars to put this endeavor

in motion. What does that type of money buy you as far as facilities and personnel? Well, the facilities that's being built out in Tallahassee is second to none in the world. It's state of the art equipment and nothing was that there was no corners were cut to put this place together. The set is going to be unlike any other news that you've ever seen. The music that you know, every newscast has its news music. Our music is being written and produced by two Grammy winners. It's got one of the fellows who's involved in our music. It's also up for an Oscar this year. So it will be an original music that sounds like us. It feels like us and what makes me most excited about all this is that this has never been done before. No one in America has ever had my job. Right. So this is truly going to be an interesting thing. I don't see very much these days. I understand. Tell us there was a pushback

as we speak today was initially was going to be the last day but now it's going to be January 2020. Why the pushback? We originally were going to launch to an audience of some 33 million people. We're working with some other vendors carriers that have come unborderly and rather than have multiple announcements, we're going to have these deals all in place by the first of the year and it's going to make news in itself when we report the people that are going to carry this network and where individuals in this country can find it. So we didn't want to do it multiple times. We want to do one great big announcement until America where it can find it whether you're in California or Florida. Is this a subscription service? It will be free on some in some basis on some basis but it'll be subscription on others. It depends on which part of the service you want. I understand. J.C. wants former congressperson and quarterback at Oklahoma. What was your immediate reaction

from his call or did he call you personally? Yeah. There are a couple of people that started recruiting me back in the early 2000s. Early 2000s. I know. Correct. They've been working on putting this together for a long time. Okay. J.C. wants as a charming, bright, articulate man who when he chatted with me told me what his vision was about what he wanted to see and why which married mine almost exactly and so it wasn't a big sales pitch. It was, hey man, when can we get started? Where's the money? Let's get this thing done and it took some time to get all of the financing in place but once that was done it was just let's get it on. How will this endeavour increase the participation of African-American or people of color as journalists are going forward? Well people of color have pretty much dropped out of watching TV news. If you turn on your local newscast you'll think that every

black person in America is a gangster. The only thing that happens at our community is crime. The only people you see on TV are in handcuffs. Why would I watch that? Well African-Americans especially are young people just tuned out. They're tired of hearing what we all know not to be true. If you look at what's happening in Chicago you think everybody in Chicago carries a gun and that you're going to get shot trying to go to the grocery store. It's just not true when it's not fair and so we're going to invite America especially black America to tune in to find out what the real story is in their community. By doing that we're going to also partner with every black newspaper in the country so we're going to find those stories in every community that mainstream media overlooks. The 10-year-old boy who's a sophomore in college or the 12-year-old girl who's a college professor. We don't hear those stories on TV. We're going to give license to those people to tell those stories on TV.

When you look at the landscape as you just articulated how are you all going to compete on a level of some of the other majors? I'm in no competition with the CNNs and the Foxes. They're going to be in competition with us because they're looking for the people that we're going to serve every day. Have you had any indication of advertisers, Biden at the bit, so to speak, to advertise on the channel? The short answer is yes and no. Excuse me. At launch we're going to have tons of advertisers but you know they advertise in communities. They're very conservative. They want to see the products before they put their commercials on it. In some cases and other cases just on the concept, they've said absolutely you want to be partners with you. So we're going to have our share of our commercials when we launch this network. You're not going to see a lot of dead air. That's a sure. I understand. How did Tallahassee become the base for the network? One of our primary investors

owned a lot of property and business interest in Tallahassee and so it was chosen in large part because we had a place to be shot. Khan, one of our primary financiers is in Jacksonville. Tallahassee is the state capital. It's a beautiful little city and it's the people who are who have the money behind it live there. That's what we're going to be. Ted Turner went to Atlanta because that was his own. If you could make a media sit out as in you want. I know that's right. If a young journalist is listening to this particular interview, how can they go about submitting their work to you for a possible employment? Oh, that's simple. Go to our website. The jobs that we have open are listed, applying. That's where I found a great number of the ones that I've hired. I've also hired a number of people through NABJ, which is the National Association of Black Journalists. We're partnering with them as well. And so you reach out to the organizations that support you as do we? I've read that you are a time Emmy award-winning

broadcast news recipient. Can you articulate some of the awards you want for the work you've done? You don't have enough time for that long boring story. I have been around a long time and I've been blessed to work with some of the best journalists in the country. So the RTDNA puts out an award that's called the HITWINAR MIRROR. I've got a number of those. I've got a number of Emmys. I've got a Society of Professional Journalists Award. It was privileged to work in a company that we produced product. We got a couple of Columbia Duponts. And the list goes on. I mean, I've been around a long time, but more importantly, I'm not so interested in awards anymore as I am my legacy. And my legacy, I don't want it to be that. My legacy is the living brick that I get a chance to work with. That's the young journalist who really are our future. I want to be able to work with them, counsel them, inspire them, and be able to sit back someday and watch

television to know that something I said or did is now making a difference in the community that I'm happy. Who are some of the individuals that make up the management with you at the channel? My assistant news director is a fellow by the name of Joe Gutierrez. Felicia Burden is my news operations manager. Lord Toby is the director of the manager of directors. I've got Seth Garcia, who is my creative services director. And so we don't have a huge management staff what I have as a bunch of zealots who are anxious to get in there and get it done. So are you all going to have brews around the country? I am going to have bureaus in New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans. I'm also partnering with a broadcast company that's giving us space and Detroit, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Miami, Orlando, Jacksonville, and by the time and Los Angeles and by the time we get

into a mid next year, remember every HBCU with a journalism department is a member of our small community, as well the 223 black newspapers are bureau sites for us around the country. So our reach is as broad as any other network out there, but it's specific culturally specific to the black community. Are there any metrics in place or will be in place to measure the effectiveness of what you are presenting? We will be measured by Nielsen Media just like everybody else. Okay, okay. Mr. Wardlaw went at the end of the day. Obviously this has been a long process. At the end of the day, what makes that a successful day for you thus far? If I go home and I know that my team and that Gary Wardlaw and his team have worked to bring the news and information that's culturally specific to America and we did the best we could with us that day, I'm satisfied.

And the great thing is we get to do it over again the next day and the next day. I understand. A couple more questions Mr. Wardlaw. Where would you like to see this channel maybe five to ten years from now? Oh, I'd like to see it be the primary carrier on every telephone, every tablet, and every set in the country. I understand. Any final comments on this to Wardlaw? We need the support of the community with their eyes. Also, it's not my network, it's our network, so I'm going to solicit everybody who has an idea about what they'd like to see covered in their community. Go on our website, send me your story ideas. I'm Gary Wardlaw at btnc.tv. Gary Wardlaw, Vice President of News and Programming, the Black News Channel. JC Watts is the chairman of the JC Watts companies. He's also the co-founder and chairman of the Black News Channel. In 1994, he was elected Congress from the Fourth District of Oklahoma.

He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. As the visionary of the Black News Channel, he sees the network as an opportunity for African-Americans to tell their own stories and for the larger communities to see African-Americans in a totally different context. It's an African-American news channel that is culturally specific to the African-American community, and it is for African-Americans and about African-Americans, and I think people in my life's experiences of living for 61 years, I think over the last, you know, for much of my time in public service, you've gotten one view or one perspective or one picture of the African-American community, and it's so much more in the Black community than crime. There's obviously politics, there's economics, there's wellness, there's faith, there's culture. There's a whole host of things that exist in the Black community,

and we want to be the venue, the network that tells those stories. I think obviously there's things that news is news, but news is more than sports, and I participated in sports for 25, 30 years, I've got kids that participate in sports, but there's more to the African-American community than sports and entertainment, there's wellness, you don't hear Fox News and MSNBC or CNN talking about sickle cell. My family or many Black families are impacted by sickle cell, and it's a blood disorder, and I'm involved in a 5K run, raising money, raising awareness about sickle cell on an annual basis. That's a disease that impacts about 95% of the people impacted by sickle cell, they're African-Americans, so you don't hear networks talking about that, so we will be talking about things that other networks aren't talking about,

and like I said, it's culturally specific to the African-American community, so if you're talking about things given dinner on the Black news channel, you're not going to be talking about pumpkin pie for dessert, you're going to be talking about sweet potato pie for dessert. It doesn't mean that Black people don't eat pumpkin pie, but culturally, we are more inclined to have sweet potato pie and cornbread dressing for Thanksgiving, as opposed to having pumpkin pie and stuffings. You know, when you look at TV1, Kathy Hughes has been her and her son, they've been heroes, they are heroes of mine, you know, BET, and what Bob Johnson started years ago. I mean, to see the challenge that we've had over the last 10, 12 years, and trying to get to the point that we can get distribution, we can line up investments, and when you look at BET and TV1, they're more on the entertainment side, we're more on the new side.

We want to, you know, our mission, we say that we want to inspire and form and educate. But what we're trying to accomplish, we want to be, we will be a 24-7 news program that informs and educates and inspires African-American community. And so the news format that we have makes us different. There's no out of the 273 channels that you can get on cable. You don't have a channel on television today in the lineup that is news for by and about the African-American community. When I took a trip, I led a delegation to Africa back in the late 90s when I was in Congress with some of my colleagues, and we were in West Africa, and I understand the history will tell you that about 80% of slave trade was in West Africa. We went to Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Male, some of the West African countries, and we saw poverty,

obviously, but we saw hospitals being built, we saw health clinics, we saw school teachers, we saw kids in school, we saw, you know, families sewing and harvesting gardens. We saw a whole host of things, and a buddy of mine from Louisiana that went with me, he went home and talked to his 90-year-old granddad and told his granddad what he had seen. He said, dad, he said, granddad, I was over in Africa and he said, we saw hospitals being built, we saw teachers, we saw kids in schools, we saw health clinics, we saw entrepreneurs. He told him all the things he had seen, and his granddad said, I knew there was more. News is not just leading by bleeding. Obviously, that's important, if something happens in the community, we want to talk about that, but we want to tell a more comprehensive story. You know, there's wellness news, there's obviously political news, there's economic news,

there's news from the faith community, historical black colleges and universities. Well, you know, HBC News will be in Tallahassee, Florida, and Tallahassee, Florida has Florida and M University, FAMU. FAMU has a great journalism school, Howard University has a great journalism school, but we will have a curriculum that we will train, have internships and have training programs for black journalists, and also there's black journalists that you don't hear a whole lot about when you see a black journalist on television, JC Watts co-founder and chairman, the black news channel. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions as to future in black America programs, email us at inblackamerica at kut.org. Also, let us know what radio station you heard is open. I would like to thank both TV for their assistance and the production of this program. Remember to like us on Facebook and to follow us on Twitter.

The views and the opinions expressed on this program are not necessary, those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. You can hear previous programs online at kut.org. Until we have the opportunity again for Teclico producer David Alvarez, I'm John L. Hanson Jr. Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week. CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America CDs. KUT Radio 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard, Austin, Texas 78712. That's in black America CDs, KUT Radio 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard, Austin, Texas 78712. This has been a production of KUT Radio.