Columbia Center for Oral History Portal > Oral history interview with Carl Morris, 1971.Biographical NoteCarl Morris (1931-2004) served in the US Air Force for three years and graduated from West Virginia State College. Having worked in public relations, he started his career as a journalist working for the St. Louis Argus, a black weekly newspaper, and later served as general manager and executive editor of the Pittsburgh Courier. Morris was the first minority affairs director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors; he was also the executive director of the National Association of Black Journalists. He founded the National Association of Minority Media Executives, where he tracked newspapers' statistics in hiring minorities.
Scope and ContentsMorris begins this 1971 interview with an overview of his childhood, education, early career in public relations, and his transition to journalism. He demonstrates how the black press has lost its crusading zeal, contrasting its state at the time of the interview with its past social consciousness. Morris discusses: differences between the black and white press; the future prospects for the black press; the need for a national black news service; how a white owner could impact credibility and identity of a black paper; and how African American history could have been different without the black press. Morris describes the expanding readership of his newspaper and the goal of objective journalism, citing examples of bias in the white press.
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