Over the last couple of weeks, two of America’s most respected Black newspapers — the Portland Skanner and the Richmond Free Press — have folded after decades of serving their communities.
Both publications cited the political and economic climate, along with mounting digital challenges, as revenue declined beyond recovery. The Skanner closed after 50 years. The Free Press shut down after 34.
“The problem is advertising has dried up,” Free Press Publisher Jean Boone told The OBSERVER. “And the aura and influence of our national politics is such that corporations have ceased to take seriously or care about the Black community.”
Boone said corporate advertisers no longer see value in investing in Black media.
“Their view is Black consumers will buy anyway,” she said. “I’ve had people in sales told, ‘They’ll come and buy a car anyway.’”
Boone founded the Virginia-based paper in 1992 with her late husband, Raymond H. Boone Sr. She said racism continues to shape corporate decision-making.
“Racism is alive and well in this country and indeed in Richmond,” Boone said. “DEI — the so-called new words for affirmative action — have permeated the decision-making tables of corporate America, and as such we have been left on the cutting room floor.”
The Free Press was a free weekly sustained by advertising. It published every Thursday.
“We believe there should be no barrier for people getting the information they need and want,” Boone said.
Two major advertising agencies eventually moved away from the paper.
“Their incentive is to work with large-revenue newspapers, for example The New York Times, where they get more of a fee for ad placement than they would with a ‘little pip-squeak weekly,’ as my husband called us,” she said.
At times, the paper waited months to be paid for ads. Meanwhile, digital readership failed to replace lost print revenue.
“A lot of people born in the late 20th century don’t want to read their news online,” Boone said. “They’re old-fashioned. They want a print newspaper.”
The paper operated what Boone described as an “underground distribution center,” placing boxes throughout the city where readers would take copies — often distributing extras themselves.
Launching a Black newspaper in Richmond — the former capital of the Confederacy — was never easy, Boone said.
“That aura looms very (heavily) in this city,” she said, referencing the paper’s efforts to push for the removal of Confederate statues from Monument Avenue. Despite threats and vandalism, the publication endured.
By the early 2000s, the Free Press had built a weekly circulation of nearly 35,000, reaching an estimated 120,000 readers.
Boone called her late husband “a consummate journalist and the lead player in this drama.” Before co-founding the paper, Raymond Boone worked at his hometown newspaper in Suffolk, Virginia, and later taught journalism at Howard University.
Boone said her family is taking time to regroup while navigating health challenges.
“Given the health concerns of all our people, we have to take a deep breath and take care of ourselves,” she said. “It took everything we had to get to this point.”
Still, she expressed pride in what the paper built.
“We were able to do this for 34 years,” Boone said, “and have people who have worked with us since the beginning.”
A Similar Struggle In Portland
The Portland Skanner faced many of the same financial pressures.
Bernie V. Foster and his wife, Bobbie Dore’ Foster, founded the Skanner in 1965 to “challenge people to shape a better future” and amplify the voices of underserved Black neighborhoods. The paper reported on racism in housing, health care and policing, addressed public policy and organized community events. Many young Black and allied journalists launched their careers there.
In 1989, the Skanner led the campaign to rename Portland’s Union Avenue as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, gathering more than 4,000 signatures.
Its circulation peaked at roughly 95,000 in the 1990s. The Fosters later established the Skanner Foundation, which provided scholarships and community awards. The Oregon Historical Society recognized them as “history makers,” and community leaders described the Skanner as a “civic institution.”
But digital disruption reshaped the business model.
“Putting out a newspaper in the Pacific Northwest has changed dramatically, and Black newspapers are no different,” Foster, 85, told The OBSERVER. “Online is for a new generation. We are in a digital age. We’re getting information faster.”
Two years ago, the Skanner generated 1 million digital hits a week, he said. But competition intensified.
“All the big internet companies got wind of it and borrowed some of our technology,” Foster said. Traffic dropped to 250,000 hits a month. “And I did not make money online the way I did the old way.”
With artificial intelligence accelerating change, he added, “No one knows where it’s going.”
The Skanner went fully digital in 2023. Foster credited Sacramento OBSERVER founder Dr. William H. Lee with helping him “learn what newspapers were all about.”
“We know we left the Pacific Northwest a little better than we did 50 years ago,” he said.
Though the newspaper has closed, the Fosters are not stepping away from entrepreneurship. Next month, they plan to open a shop at Portland International Airport selling news and gifts.
“We might come back as a news entity,” Foster said. “You can do a lot of things if you put enough eyeballs on it. The old model is out the window.”
Bobbie Dore’ Foster told KOIN 6 News that advertisers increasingly favor social media platforms over newspapers. She said the Skanner leaves behind “a Black-owned enterprise that has served the community by sharing stories that are important to them, highlighting their achievements and offering vital information that demanded attention and action.”
A National Crisis
More than 200 African American-owned community newspapers remain active in the United States, according to the National Newspaper Publishers Association, or NNPA. In 2027, the Black Press will mark the 200th anniversary of the nation’s first Black newspaper.
Still, leaders warn that closures like those in Richmond and Portland signal deeper instability.
Onyx Impact, a nonprofit research and digital innovation hub focused on Black communities, criticized the shutdowns.
“This is heartbreaking,” said Esosa Osa, founder and CEO of Onyx Impact. “The loss of two legacy Black papers in the same month is completely unacceptable. These are institutions that have carried our history and checked power when nobody else would.”
On Feb. 6, the organization announced a $500,000 commitment to Black-owned media outlets, including the NNPA. The funding agreement, made amid continued advertiser retrenchment around diversity initiatives, is aimed at strengthening digital infrastructure, expanding audience reach and improving long-term sustainability for legacy Black publications.
In 2025, Onyx Impact partnered with The OBSERVER and six other Black newspapers to collaborate with digital creators and accelerate their transition online.
Osa described the closures as part of a broader national crisis.
“Black outlets that have sustained our communities for decades are being starved of advertising and institutional support,” she said. “When Black papers disappear, the entire information ecosystem shifts. Corruption gets easier. Disinformation gets louder.”
She said the shift to digital platforms has intensified the challenge.
“Folks get the overwhelming majority of information from what they see online,” Osa said. “There’s a fundamental need to increase the reach and audience of Black news outlets.”
Artificial intelligence and search platforms, she added, are further reshaping how audiences find information — and where advertising dollars flow.
“The philanthropic sector often still treats Black media as a special project rather than a core democratic structure,” Osa said. “We are not seeing a collapse of demand for Black news. We are seeing a collapse of who’s willing to fund it.”
“You can’t pull ads and expect Black papers to run on fumes,” she added.
EDITOR’S NOTE: OBSERVER copy editor Larry Hicks contributed to this story.