Still telling the stories that matter

Bush Fellow Georgia Fort connects news and Black culture

Independent journalist Georgia Fort applied for a Bush Fellowship after seeing other successful leaders granted the opportunity in the past. For her, it was an acknowledgment of leadership excellence. She had applied twice before, but her third time proved the charm.

“It is a unique opportunity in our region to receive investment not toward your organization, not toward a specific project, but into your growth [and] development as a leader,” she says. Fort plans to use the fellowship to pursue a leadership certificate from Harvard University and to implement movement into her daily routine.

“As a person who owns a media organization focused on the Black community in our state, I often find myself covering a lot of stories that are filled with trauma,” she explains. “That [trauma] enters our bodies as storytellers.”

She hopes to incorporate movement by holding walking meetings instead of using conference rooms. “I want to practice the discipline of movement every day, to process and release that trauma.”

Fort leads both for-profit and nonprofit journalism institutions. Her nonprofits, the Center for Broadcast Journalism, which houses the Saint Paul-based radio station Power 104.7 FM, have a mission to diversify the media industry. Currently, less than three percent of journalists are Black.

Through the nonprofits, Fort equips young people of color aged 16–24 with cameras, microphones, and audio recording devices. They gain hands-on, paid work experience. Past participants include TV reporters in Rochester and North Dakota, as well as a recipient of a four-year journalism scholarship from the University of St. Thomas.

When Fort was in college, she initially declared a journalism major. But after meeting a woman with a journalism degree who worked for the State of Minnesota and couldn’t get a journalism job, Fort changed her major to business, a decision that now helps her run her media endeavors.

Keeping with her passion for journalism, she has worked in radio and TV across multiple markets and affiliates. After two Emmy nominations and working as an anchor at an NBC affiliate in Duluth, she returned to the Twin Cities.

She applied for four openings, speaking directly with the hiring managers at each station. “I thought I was strongly positioned to work in this market, even though it was a bigger market,” she says. She was not hired at any of them.

At the Center for Broadcast Journalism, Fort says, “We believe that by creating these opportunities that remove barriers for young people to get into the career fields, we’ll be on track to see our newsrooms and our region reflect the demographics of the communities that they serve.”

Her for-profit media organization, BLCK Press, began in 2020 with a mission to reconnect news to Black culture. It produced “Here’s the Truth,” a TV show that ran for three seasons on the CW Twin Cities. Produced by a diverse team, the show won three of 12 regional Emmy nominations.

“As a people, we believe that our culture has moved away from news because news traditionally has not served us,” she says. “It hasn’t acknowledged us and the authenticity of who we are.”

Through BLCK Press, Fort and her team focus on stories without the negative lens mainstream media often imposes. “We cover a lot of our communities’ brilliance, joy and creativity.”

When big names or events like Beyoncé or the BET Awards take the spotlight in the Black community, “We all stop and pause and listen and then debrief about them the next day,” Fort says. “It’s a part of our culture, and at BLCK Press, we’re thinking deeply about how news and journalism can become…a part of Black culture,” as it was during the heyday of “Jet” and “Ebony” magazines and other Black-owned news organizations.

Recent political shifts have also impacted Fort’s work. Three years ago, Target sent an RFP to Black-owned media corporations to engage and support the communities they serve. BLCK Press and other Black media sources across the state submitted proposals.

When their proposal was accepted, it led to a productive working relationship for two years, Fort says. They met guidelines and often exceeded goals proposed in the RFP.

“It just came to a screeching halt” during the third year, after Target rolled back DEI initiatives. BLCK Press lost approximately half of its operating budget. “We have not been able to produce another season of our show,” Fort says. “As a leader, I had to think long and hard about whether or not I could continue to do this work.”

Funding support from Press Forward, “a nationwide, nonpartisan philanthropic initiative,” helped sustain the organization, though it did not offset the lost Target funding.

Through the nonprofit, Fort is creating a safe space for young people to enter journalism. “The industry is changing, and so I hope the newsrooms catch up, because I think they are essential to our democracy,” she says. “But if they don’t, we’re going to continue to see this industry really morph over the next decade.”

She also offers young people the opportunity to pursue nontraditional paths, as she and many media producers have done through social media and independent journalism.

Through the Bush Fellowship, Fort says, “As a leader, I am trying to solve a complex problem. Having the opportunity of the Bush Fellowship is going to strengthen and develop my leadership to ensure that I am successful.”

Regarding Black-owned media outlets, she says, “We are struggling to exist in a post-DEI climate… But we are still here. We are still telling the stories that matter, and we are still committed to reconnecting news to Black culture.”

For more information, visit www.georgiafort.com.

Find more on her nonprofits at www.centerforbroadcastjournalism.org, and its radio station at www.power1047.fm. Or, her for-profit at www.blckpress.com.