Black press ignored as federal media program seeks to halt youths' drug use

Jet, Feb 23, 1998

A $195 million National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign (NYAC) launched at President Clinton's insistence is relying on White media only.

Although Black teens are seriously impacted by drug use in this country with a large percentage of young Black adults having been incarcerated because of drug use, the President's Office of National Drug Control Policy has completely ignored the Black media.

Complaining of the outrageous slight, Dorothy Leavell, the President of the National Newspaper Publishers Assn. (NNPA), a trade group representing more than 200 Black newspapers, alerted members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional leadership of both parties and the Clinton administration.

In a visit to Washington, Ms. Leavell discovered official government documents detailing the strategies of the media campaign failed to include Black publications. The campaign already has started in 12 test cities with advertising in daily newspapers.

"This is incredible and insulting," she charged, pointing out that President Clinton as a presidential nominee aggressively sought the support of the African-American press for his candidacy in 1992. She said that the Clinton-Gore team also heavily courted the Black press during the 1996 presidential campaign.

Countered Ms. Leavell, "There has to be some accountability for this type of irresponsibility in what has become a consistent pattern of federal government agencies refusing to advertise in African-American Newspapers."

Jet contacted the office of White House drug policy director Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who is also director of the NYAC, and was referred to the NYAC public affairs office, which had no comment at press time.