- [Titus] It's been about 100 years since George Pheldon Stewart began serving the central Indiana community through his newsletter.

- It was started in 1895 as basically a church newsletter, and George Pheldon Stewart decided he was going to produce a newsletter that would relate to the church community in Indianapolis, Indiana, and it would also produce advertising revenue.

So he went door to door selling advertising, and also producing this newsletter that was to record what was going on in the churches in Indianapolis community.

- [Titus] In 1897, Stewart co-founded "The Indianapolis Recorder" with Will Porter.

A couple of years later, Stewart became the sole owner, and for the next 90 years, the Stewart family owned and operated one of the nation's oldest Black newspapers.

Like many Black publications, success was based on need.

- I think that the Black newspaper has given an alternative voice to a community where there's not been publication of what is going on in the African American community.

The Black paper has filled that void, especially in Indiana.

And again, you know, I can't help but reflect on a paper like "The Indianapolis Recorder," because I can't tell you the amount of researchers who have come to the Indiana Historical Society and have, in terms of recreating a specific time period or in a specific neighborhood, they've really pretty much had to rely upon "The Indianapolis Recorder" through advertisements as well as publication of what was going on for the time period.

- [Titus] "The Recorder's" broad appeal helped to sustain its popularity, but as Black news found its way into the mainstream, "The Recorder" became challenged to keep its readers.

- As we got more and more coverage from the white institutions, then the need for an African American paper, for example, seemed to decline, so one of the ways that I think the African American newspapers responded was to become a little bit more sensationalistic.

They became a much higher ratio of coverage to crime than would normally be the case, so you get a disproportionate relationship with crime, and really what is probably negative news as a means to kind of hook people and keep 'em going on with buying your newspapers.

- [Titus] Over the past six years, "The Recorder" has changed hands twice.

Most recently, the newspaper's controlling interest was purchased by Bill Mays of Mays Chemical.

Today's newspaper has a broader focus.

- Editors and publishers of African American newspapers have gotten away from kind of single issue treatment of things focusing only on crime.

I think most of us deal with politics, social reform issues, welfare reform, you name it.

We deal more in a broader sense than probably the paper used to, because the primary focus again at that time, for a while, was just simply survival.

- [Titus] In today's highly sophisticated newspaper industry, "The Recorder" has positioned itself in the marketplace to attract mainstream advertisers.

The newspaper is also reaching out and becoming more diverse.

- [Charles] The JAWS Program, it's a program for junior high and high school students that trains them in journalism, gives 'em the opportunity to write.

Their articles appear every week in "The Indianapolis Recorder" newspaper.

♪ The Indianapolis Recorder ♪ Business news ♪ Religious news ♪ Entertainment news - [Charles] "The Recorder On Air Report," "The ROAR," we call it, is a spinoff of our earlier effort at radio, which was a radio call-in talk show.

We simply took that concept and turned it into a television show.

So it's a news magazine, goes over the paper, issues of concern to the community.

And in addition to that, we produced a film recently about problems of race relations at Indiana University.

We've been well received.

We hope that it will air on PBSC.

- [Titus] For the past century, "The Indianapolis Recorder" has played an important role in central Indiana.

Blair is encouraged to take the newspaper's mission into the 21st century.

- [Charles] We're here because we believe in the viability of these institutions.

We think that the African American press is absolutely critical to America, to its understanding of itself, to its knowledge of history, and really its place in the future, and so we're very strongly committed to what we're doing here.

Even though it's not always been profitable, and it's not always been something that's made us a lot of money, we're committed to keeping this product here.

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