Pictured are new Call and Post President Kevin Hill, the former editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel ( wearing brown shirt), International Boxing Promoter and Call and Post Owner and Publisher Don King ( wearing eyeglasses) the late Constance "Connie Harper, the longtime
associate publisher and editor for the African American weekly that is distributed in the Ohio cities of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, and George Forbes (wearing blue suit), local attorney former Cleveland City Council President and former longtime president of the Cleveland NAACP. Forbes is also the longtime general counsel for the Call and Post under King.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.
Coleman is a 22-year political, legal and investigative journalist who trained for 17 years, and under five different editors, at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
CLEVELAND Ohio–Former Los Angeles Sentinel Newspaper editor Kenneth Miller is the new president of the Call and Post Newspaper, Cleveland's 99-year-old African-American print newspaper that distributes a weekly paper in the Ohio cities of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, and that has been owned and published by Cleveland native and internationally known boxing promoter Don King since 1998.King is an ally to popular Ohio Republican Gov John Kasich, a former congressman and potential 2016 GOP presidential contender. (Editor's note : GOP front-runners for the Republican nomination for president, and in a crowded field, are former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, polls say. Hillary Clinton a former U.S. first lady , prior U.S. Sen. for New York, and secretary of state under Barack Obama during the president's first term in office is the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic primary).
King held an emergency staff meeting at newspaper headquarters in Cleveland this month to make the major announcement of his choice to lead the Call and Post.
Miller is also the former press deputy for former Democratic congresswoman Laura Richardson of California, who is also Black like both King and Miller.
King said that Miller will bring needed change to the news outlet that has lost steam in recent years.
“In any language, Kenny is the boss," said King in a story published by the newspaper on the announcement of new leadership. "When you speak to Kenny, you will be speaking to me and he has my complete confidence in restoring the Call and Post to its rightful position as the standard for Black newspapers.”
Miller spent 35 years with the Los Angeles Sentinel, an African-American weekly distributed in the city of Los Angeles, California.
The Los Angeles native arrived in Cleveland on June 5, and is reportedly relocating from California.
Miller said that he accepted the challenge because of his fondness and relationship with King, and because Cleveland, a largely Black major metropolitan city of some 375,000 people, is on the move, in one way or another.
What role, if any, that longtime Call and Post general counsel George Forbes, a former city council president and former longtime president of the Cleveland NAACP who is also a part-time attorney, played in the decision was not made public.
A Democrat, and also an ally to Gov. Kasich,
Forbes is or was close to King and came aboard as the newspaper's attorney when King bought the newspaper, one more widely known for former publisher W.O. Walker, though the John Bustamante family owned it before King, a multimillionaire boxing promoter whose fighters include Muhammad Ali, and a now disgruntled Mike Tyson, among others.
King, 83, is a Republican, though he crossed partisan lines in 2008 when he and the newspaper endorsed Obama, then a junior U.S. senator representing Illinois, and now a two term president in the third year of his second four-year term, and America's first Black president. (Editor's note: As the 2016 presidential election nears, Ohio remains a pivotal state as to presidential elections with no Republican winning the White House without first winning Ohio and John F. Kennedy , in 1960, being the last Democratic president to do so).
What impact the Black press, and Black digital media in Ohio, and nationally, will have relative to the presidential election, remains to be seen.
Social media and digital newspapers, nationally and internationally, have all but shutout print publications, but the Black press is holding on, including papers such as the Final Call, and the Chicago Defender.
The historic newspaper, a member of the National Newspapers Publishers Association of the Black press across the country, hits the stands every Wednesday, and has a staunch elderly, and Black and White following, among others.
Miller essentially replaces longtime Call and Post associate publisher and editor Constance "Connie" Harper, 81, who died late last year of heart trouble and was laid to rest with accolades, including an editorial published and written by King himself saying the newspaper had flourished under her leadership
Glen Shumate was the last president. He stayed a couple of years. And before him was Michael House, who left the paper in 2006 for a brief stunt with Jackson as his press secretary and then was president of the Chicago Defender until he retired.
Harper was a loyal supporter of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, still in shape and good-looking at 68, by some measures, and a three-term Black mayor. King still supports the mayor too, sources said, though Forbes, still a political power-broker at 84, has been cool to Jackson in recent months, or years. They tolerate each other, sources said.
Longtime entertainment editor, Kevin "Chill" Heard, whom Forbes has supported for years, had stepped up as managing editor before Harper's death at 81-year-old and had all but taken over the newspaper under King as its general manager
Heard will stay on as as general manager, a newspaper spokesperson told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news.
The newspaper has done little too in terms of truly standing up for the Black community in recent years, some community activists and others say, and Jackson especially needs to do more, say his foes. This includes a group leading a recall effort, and led by activist Norm Edwards, and local attorney Michael Nelson, a former mayoral candidate and an attorney for the Cleveland NAACP.
The Cleveland NAACP, which is led by local president the Rev.Hilton Smith, has all but been shut down as the national office investigates amid internal bickering and complaints of violations of organizational bylaws.
Miler's move to Cleveland to seek to rekindle some fire in the Call and Post may or may not be good timing, but it comes as the city continues to make national news, good and bad.
The city will host the 2016 Republican National Convention as next year's presidential election nears, and the Cleveland Cavaliers made it to the NBA Finals this year, though the team lost the championship title this month to the Golden State Warriors. And police murders of unarmed Black people in Cleveland are on the rise and making national headlines. They include 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, Malissa Williams and Timothy Williams, and rapper Kenneth Smith.
This month a federal district judge approved a consent decree between the city of Cleveland and the U.S Department of Justice for the largely White police department, one in shambles as crime rates escalate and police, mainly White ones, continue to wage war on the Black community, including the continual murders of unarmed Blacks with impunity.
A consent degree between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice to help reform the shattered Cleveland Police Department was approved this month by a federal district court judge, and with the mayor's support.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
