[Farai Chideya:] The nation's oldest black newspaper, The Philadelphia Tribune, recently scored seven honors at the 67th Annual National Newspaper Publishers Association Merit Awards. For more, we've got Robert W. Bogle, the paper's president, publisher, and chief executive officer. Mr. Bogle, welcome.
[Mr. Robert W. Bogle:] Thank you for having me.
[Farai Chideya:] Let's talk a little bit about this specific award, the A. Philip Randolph Messenger Award, and the AIDS-HIV coverage. There has been sometimes a tendency in our Africa-American media to say, well we don't want to address things head on. Other times, there have been huge amounts of social challenge and social justice on behalf of the community by African-American newspapers. Do you ever get caught up in that tension between painting a good picture of the community, and dealing with the hard issues?
[Mr. Bogle:] Every day. And sometimes, trying to resolve issues, you have to frequently bring out the worse. But the only way I believe that we're going to resolve this issue about AIDS and the virus itself, it's [unintelligible] we have to go and talk about the very serious and devastating effects that it has on our community and any community.
[Farai Chideya:] When you really think about your city, Philadelphia, and all of the wonderful things about it and all of the challenges that it, like any city faces, how would you describe it to someone who's never been there?
[Mr. Bogle:] Well, I think this is the greatest city in America. Bear in mind that I take an enormous amount of pride in the fact that this is the birthplace of this nation, of this place called America. This is where it began, right here in Philadelphia.
[Farai Chideya:] Do you think, this is something that we find as part of our job at NEWS & NOTES, which is an African-American and African diaspora program, but we have listeners of all races. Do you find that you can serve both an African-American audience and what's called a general interest audience at the same time?
[Mr. Bogle:] Well, frankly, we read them and we have 300 years of history books about non-African-Americans. They read very little about us from us and know very little about us, except when somebody tells them and what they will see or hear. So we are forced frequently to have interest in what they're doing because, frankly, they still have a major influence in what happens in this region.
[Farai Chideya:] What does your paper do to try to foster some sense of empowerment, and knowledge, forward movement so people can begin to craft lives that are important not just for themselves and their families, but to the whole city?
[Mr. Bogle:] What we attempt to do is to expose opportunities wherever they may be and then the most important thing is to ensure that we have an educational system or attempt to ensure this educational system we have is inclusive and is seriously preparing tomorrow's leaders, tomorrow's participants, tomorrow's citizens, so that they in fact can be more engaged and involved and kind of and compete in a way that makes them a part of the system.
[Farai Chideya:] Well, Mr. Bogle, we wish you another century and more of for your newspaper and thank you for speaking with us.
[Mr. Bogle:] Thank you.
[Farai Chideya:] Robert W. Bogle is president, publisher and CEO of The Philadelphia Tribune; he joined us from the studios of Audiopost in Philadelphia.